Arkham
by Het Up
Summary: Tim is retired from the hero business until the new Robin, Stephanie Brown, calls him in to help her with a strange series of murders: all the victims committed suicide.
1. Chapter 1

1. Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself

_Hi there. You probably don't know me, but don't be afraid. I promise I won't bite. Bet your mother told you never to talk to strangers. But I'm not stranger. In fact, you and I are old friends. Well, not yet, but you could say I'm a friend of the family. Your father knew me, his father knew me… maybe even his father. I know you young'uns think you have nothing to learn from us old folk, but I consider myself more important today than I ever was. Way I see it, I'm eighty-five years young and I plan to outlive all of you._

Wait, what? Don't get up, don't get up, story's just getting started. It won't take long, I swear. It may be short, but it's packed full of action, adventure, some mushy romance for the ladies and sissy-boys, thrills, chills, and my personal favorite, madness.

I don't know what to call this story, I'm sure you'll think up a nice clever name, maybe a daring bon mot or a wacky pun or just an allusion to a quote from some dry, dusty text. It doesn't matter what this story is called. What does matter is who it's about. Two young people who's lives I've had the glee of touching.

Starting to get interested, now?

Their names are Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown and this is the story of how I killed them.

2. Boy Wonder Named Sue

The phone call startled Tim out of his sleep like a bucket of cold water. Raising his head from his pillow, he rolled over onto his back and picked the cell-phone off his bedstand, putting to his ear.

"Yeah?" Cheery hellos were for after ten A.M.

"Hey Tim. Are you alone?"

The voice was Steph's, only darker, deeper. The auditory version of her staying in the shadows. She'd begun using it ever since she became Robin and Tim would find it almost comedic if it didn't make his stomach twist every time he heard it.

"No, Kon's here. No woman could ever eclipse you in my heart, so I've turned gay. Yes, of course I'm alone."

"And yet you had to get my hopes up…" Steph's voice has slipped into the almost-playful, nearly-flirtatious tone she had used back when they were Robin and Spoiler, not Robin and Tim Drake. She regained the edge immediately. "Got a case, needs that Robin 3.0 magic."

Tim turned his pillow over and rested his cheek against the cool side, letting out a long sub-moan as he felt it against his skin. There was no way he was getting to sleep now, not with his curiosity aroused, but that didn't mean he couldn't give Steph a hard time. Besides, she deserved some grief from running home to Tim every time things got rough.

"Can't. I barely managed to talk my dad out of sending me to a deprogramming camp. If he catches me…"

"Tell him you went out for a smoke."

"I don't smoke."

"Then tell him you were doing one of your dork things. Collecting spores and molds and funguses."

"Fungi," Tim corrected.

"Yes, I do think you're a fun guy, but right now we need to focus."

Sighing, Tim rolled out of bed and began getting dressed. "How do I get there, call a taxi?"

"Look out the window."

Tim rolled his eyes and did so. The Redbird was parked on the opposite side of the street, the window down. Steph… Robin… waved at him. 

"Nice boxers. Quick, former Robin, to the Robinmobile!"

The Redbird had already accumulated a bit of detritus. Tim, dressed in a red hoodie and jeans, filled some Wendy's take-out bags with an assortment of candy wrappers and soft drink cans, then dumped them into the neighbor's garbage can. Stretching out into the passenger seat, he had to scoot the seat back before he could get comfortable.

As soon as he got in, he saw what Steph had done to herself. Thick black locks trickled down from her hairline and merged with the collar of her cape.

"Did you dye your hair?"

Robin waved off the suggestion, coquettishly pushing a strand of hair back behind her ear. "No, no, it's just a wig."

"I see you still look to Dinah as an influence…"

"Well, we can't all be Batman Junior…"

Just then, Tim noticed what had happened to the Redbird in his absence.

"Oh God, what have you done to my baby?" he moaned.

Robin smiled beneath her mask and finger-flicked some fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. "'S my baby now, former boy wonder. Stephmobile, away!"

"Its _name_ is the Redbird."

"Omigod, you _named_ your car?"

Tim reached out and buffed a coffee ring stain out of the finish. "How's the old girl been taking care of you?"

"She gets me where I need to go."

"I was talking to the car."

"…stop rubbing the dashboard, you freak."

In Gotham City, there's a special shift among the paramedics who drive the city's ambulances. It's called the gift shift. Anytime a man is frozen to death by Mr. Freeze or has his face dissolved by acid from a flower on the Joker's lapel or suffocated by pollen from one of Poison Ivy's plants, a hardened veteran will go there to pick the poor bastard up. They are usually experienced with years of picking up after gang wars, supervillain slugfests, and other equally "Gotham" causes of death. In other words, they are the least likely to throw up, break down into tears, or simply scream and scream and scream upon seeing what happens when Gotham City breaks its toys.

Tonight, the gift shift was composed of Roy Palmer and David Payne. Roy Palmer was twenty-seven, a recent college graduate, and secretly bicurious. David Payne turned fifty two months ago, is married with three children, and is constantly reminding himself to pick up bagels after his shift.

The ambulance they were in was stopped at a red light when a young woman in rags, probably a runaway, began spraying the windshield with some indeterminate bluish liquid, crying "Wash your window? Wash your window?" in some hither fore undiscovered variant of English.

"No, we don't want… stop that, we don't… oh, goddamnit!" Roy cried.

"I got it last time," David reminded him.

"I know, I know, God…"

Roy opened the door to deal directly with the window-washer just in time for her to spray him with the contents of the spray can, instantly knocking him out. He got just enough of a look under her hood to see that she was wearing a mask.

"Goddamnit!"

"Yeah," she said.

David scrambled for his door as the girl drew a Robin dart from the utility belt under her coat. She needn't have bothered. As soon as David Payne opened the door, a young man was standing in the way. Two stiff fingers jabbed into his neck later, it was all over.

The girl shoved Roy Palmer into David Payne's lap as the boy climbed onto the running board. Steph shifted the ambulance into drive, turning into an alleyway where the Redbird was parked.

Tim jumped off the ambulance when it came to a stop, walking around back to the double doors as Robin grabbed the key and peeled off her disguise.

"You didn't need to use the knock-out juice. A _tunso_ strike would've been perfectly sufficient."

"So, tell me, does that whine go with steak or should I order a salad?" Robin asked as she unlocked the doors and climbed into the back of the ambulance with Tim.

The body inside looked perfectly normal for that of a forty something man wearing a business suit and retiring after a long day, save for one thing. His chest had been burned away from the inside-out.

"What've we go?" asked Tim, examining the body for clues.

"Rupert Lawrence. Stockbroker for Barnum & Peterson, age forty-four, divorced, no children. Was gassing up for the drive home when he suddenly decided to gargle gasoline with a matchstick chaser."

Tim looked up at her. "I could do without the color commentary."

"Tough it out, AARP-boy."

The burns spread from the corpse's nose down to his sternum, below which his stomach had burst open. Burning fat had sizzled his legs and groin, turning his trousers and expensive leather shoes into pieces of abstract art.

"Our boy here is a messy eater," Tim pronounced, bending down to closely examine what was left of the cadaver's face. "Spilled gas out on his lower face as he drank, then when he lit up…"

"Fwoosh."

"Exactly. But look at this…"

Tim was pointing at what looked like four elongated half-moons extending out of the burnt area of the face.

"There's another one on the other side of the burn," Steph said. Then they looked at each other.

"Fingerprints," they said as one.

"Four partial prints and a complete thumb," Tim said as he entered the samples into the Redbird's dashboard computer on the drive home. Above, the streetlights strobed overhead, casting the occasional evil glow on the inside of the car. Robin pulled down her domino mask, blinking away what was left of the spirit gum that kept it in place.

"Any matches?" Steph asked, pulling off her wig.

"No, nothing in the," Tim stifled a yawn, "criminal database. Congrats, Steph, you discovered a brand-new supervillain."

"Already they're lining up to be my new arch-nemesis." Steph's smile was a good ten percent demented. "Don't worry, buttercup, we'll have you home before you turn into a pumpkin."

Tim tried to resolve what had been mixed into that metaphor for a few moments before he decided to make his own attempt to fill the awkward silence. "So, how are things with you and…" he pointed his fingers upward at his brow, giving himself Bat ears.

"Oh, great. Couldn't be better. We fight like a well-oiled machine. He takes the high road, I take the low…"

"'There, the crevasse, fill it with your mighty truth'?"

The giggle from Steph was all stolen sips of parents' wine and hands under other people's shirts. "Something like that, yeah. Like what I've done with my hair?"

Steph's blonde hair had been neatly trimmed so as not to be visible under the wig. At its longest, it just passed her ears. Tim could make out a slight bruise on the back of her neck, where he couldn't have seen before the haircut.

"It's very…" _Butch. Dykey. Masculine._ "Interesting."

"I was going for Sam from Stargate. Think I pulled it off?"

It looked more like she had taken a left turn at Olivia from Special Victims Unit.

"I could get used to it."

That earned Tim a smile, which meant it was time for him to dig himself yet another grave.

"You didn't have to accept, you know."

A response was immediate. "Neither did you."

"I don't see how those two situations could possibly be alike," Tim admitted, letting his voice border on accusation.

"And I don't see how they're any different," Steph said defensively. "He made an offer, I took it. End of story."

The accusation crossed the border from subtext into text. "Not end of story. You knew that I was…"

Steph slapped the steering wheel hard. "That you were what? Huh? You told me once that Batman needed a Robin. If not me, then someone else. And while that someone else was still idling around, people would be dying because I wouldn't be the most efficient crimefighter I could be. All for your pride…"

Tim backed off a little: "I never said that you shouldn't take the job. It just would've been nice to have been consulted…"

"So now…" Steph was relentless. "Now, I need your permission?"

"No, you don't need my permission, but I thought, as your supposed boyfriend, you'd want a little of my advice before you took my old job!" Tim said, going right back on the warpath.

"That's what it is with you, isn't it? Robin isn't _me_, it's your old job!"

"Well, it has a nice symmetry to it! Fill an old job with an old girlfriend!"

"I'm more than your girlfriend, Tim!" Steph screamed in a voice that was all teenage girl. Then her voice hardened and went somewhere between that and Robin. "I always have been, you just never let anyone else see it!"

Tim's voice was equally quiet. "So I guess it's my fault, then."

"How many times did you stick up for me? When Batman wanted me to quit, when Batman wanted me off the streets… Cass helped me. Dinah helped me. Barbara helped me. But you? My 'supposed boyfriend'? Where were you?" Steph asked, hating herself for the vulnerability, for the pleading in her voice.

"I was waiting for you to ask for my help."

"I shouldn't have to."

Tim couldn't help but twist the dagger. "If you really were Robin, then you wouldn't need it."

Steph was still fuming after fighting into the wee hours of the morning, only heading home at the earliest rays of the dawn. She was still fuming as she parked the Redbird inside Cassandra's satellite Batcave and stepped out of it, stripping off her cape and skirt and letting them flutter to the ground like so much litter. Shrugging off her triwoven red vest stuffed with ultrathin Kevlar plates left Steph in her green leotard. She managed to get to the elevator before letting fly with a string of obscenities which questioned Tim Drake's parentage, honor, attractiveness, intelligence, and taste in music.

Stepping off the secret elevator into their apartment, Steph passed Cass on her way to her bedroom. Cass, still awake despite the hour, stood up and followed her. Steph had just started to unzip her bodystocking when she noticed Cass.

"You're still up?" she asked, signaling with a gesture for Cass to help her. Cass silently stepped forward and pulled down the slipper on the back of her suit.

"Couldn't sleep."

Steph stepped out of the suit, shedding it like it was a second skin. Cass handed her a nightgown and Steph pulled it on with a thank you. "Why not?"

"I had a nightmare."

Steph sat down on her bed. "A nightmare?"

"It was scary," Cass confirmed.

There was a quick, weary sigh before Steph acquiesced to the unspoken request. "Get the lights."

Cass drew the curtains against the morning sun as Steph burrowed under the covers, then joined the blonde, slipping among the sheets as silent as a wraith. Steph wrapped an arm around her and held her tightly.

"You wanna talk about it?"

Cass shook her head.

"That's okay. You don't have to."

"Steph?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you mad? Your body feels tense. Angry."

Steph rubbed Cass' arm. "It's nothing. I asked Tim for some help and we had a… a bit of a row."

"Row?"

"A fight, Cass."

"Oh." There was a brief silence. "Steph?"

"Yes?" Steph replied in a put-upon tone.

"Are you going to go away?"

Steph took Cass by the shoulder and pulled the other woman towards her, turning Cass around so that she was facing the new Robin. "Where'd you get an idea like that?"

"Are you?"

Steph shook her head before adding vehemently "No. I'm not going anywhere and anyone who says that is a liar. Now, who said I was leaving?"

"No one. But… people leave me. Batman sent me away. Barbara sent me away. Tim left. Dick left. Dinah and Helena, they all left…"

Reaching forward, Steph stroked Cass's cheek before leaning forward until their noses touched. "I'm not like them. I'm not going to leave. I'm in this to win it and I will be here as long as you'll have me, okay? We're in this together."

Cass didn't use her smile much, but sometimes, when the occasion called for it… "I… had hoped you'd say that."

"I'll say it was many times as you like. Now get some sleep. We're got a big night ahead of us."

3. Regrets Are For Mornings

Tim didn't get any sleep that night because he was too busy berating himself for being an asshole. He considered writing a letter, because that seemed like a nice, safe, (_romantic_) thing to do, but he didn't. That seemed more like Dick's thing, anyway, have a fight, leave a letter, go off to beat up… whoever.

Tim may not be Robin anymore, but he could still fight his own battle.

He woke up without realizing he went to sleep, cursed himself for going to sleep in perfectly good clothes which now looked wrinkled and sleep-drooly, so yeah, that would be a drag on the laundry budget. Going out in fresh_er_ clothes, it looked like the coast was clear. Dad was safely reading a paper, Dana was oblivious (because, thank God for small favors, at least Dad hadn't cared to share one little factoid about Tim's nocturnal activities with the wife).

That was when they got you. When you thought you were safe.

"Indian summer this year," Dad said, baiting the trap.

"We'll get by. That's why God invented AC." The banter was warm and inviting and just for a moment Tim forgot the gaping bat-shaped abyss between them, so that's when Dad decided to spring the trap.

"Might want to think of getting a real job."

That was a barb. No doubt about it. Like all the best ones, it flew right over a third party's head and sunk a battleship. Tim didn't rise to the occasion, wasn't even sure it was an opening shot, so he just told the truth.

"I was thinking of becoming a cop. I've always liked mysteries; been good at solving puzzles. Seems like a real good fit for me." Tim concentrated on filling his bowl of cereal up to the brim with milk as he said it, ignoring the lasers burning through Dad's reading glasses and newspaper straight into the back of his neck.

"Maybe you should think of something a little less taxing, dear," Dana said innocently, folding clothes. "You've never been the physical type."

"I've been doing some push-ups lately."

Dad slammed down his newspaper and got up from the kitchen table with a finality that announced that the conversation was going into the next gear. Tim knew all about body language, about how standing automatically gave you power over someone who was sitting, unless the sitter was behind a desk. It was a rudimentary parenting technique, but he let Jack think it was working.

"Maybe you should find a safer job. Something a little more… satisfying to a boy of your intellect."

"Yeah. Maybe I can be an archeologist, flying around the world while my son learns what his father's voice sounds like over telephones." There was no subtlety in that, nothing but cruelty so strong it even registered on Dana's sensors.

"Tim, that's a horrible thing to say! Apologize right this instant!"

Tim knew enough to look his father in the eye as he followed orders. "I'm sorry." _For telling the truth_ he did not say.

Dad didn't break the staring contest, just kept right on looking in Tim's eyes for evidence of defiance. "Listen to me, Tim. You're going to keep going to school and you're going to get a college education. And then you're going to get a real job. And in the meantime, you're going to get some experience at a real job **anywhere that they're hiring.** We clear on that?"

Getting up from the dinner table, Tim poured the milk from his cereal out in the sink. "Jawohl, mein fuhrer," he muttered under his breath.

Tim was halfway down the stairway by the time he noticed his tail. He sat down on the stairs and soon enough Cass joined him, leather trenchcoat billowing around her. Steph, obviously, abusing that checking account Bruce had generously set Batgirl up with.

"How long have you been waiting?" Tim asked.

"Obviously long enough."

"Your English is improving."

"Been working it."

"Working _on_ it."

"That too."

Tim stifled the urge to smile. Cass didn't mind most of the time, but sometimes she got the impression that people were laughing at her, which was kinda true, and that sent her into a world-class funk.

"So, here I am," Tim sprawled out horizontally across the bottom step, looking up at Cass. "What've you been waiting to tell me?"

"Steph sent me. To check up on you. Wants to know if you're still mad."

"I was. For about five minutes. Then I just felt like a heel."

Cass examined the bottom of his shoe for a moment, poked at it with her finger, then returned her eyes to his face. "Steph didn't want you to know she sent me. Said you had fight?"

"Yeah, we had a fight…"

Instantly, Tim found himself on his belly, his leg bent back in an ankle lock. "No hit Steph. Bad. Hitting friends bad."

"It wasn't that kind of fight," he managed to get out before throwing himself into an aerial corkscrew, twisting out of Steph's grasp and landing in the corner of the stairwell on all fours like a cat. "We just… raised our voices. No hitting."

Staring at him for a moment, Cass gauged the truth of his words, then turned around and started up the stairs. "Shouldn't fight with friends anyway."

The sounds of Tim's footfalls going down were like a fading echo of Cass' going up. "Don't I know it."

"So, what'd he say?" Steph asked, focusing on very precisely cutting the waffles in front of her.

Cass was ripping open the newly-arrived Netflix DVDs with glee. Since she didn't have anything else to do during the day in-between meditated sleep (Steph called them power naps), her roommate showed her movies to shore up her command of the English language. Today, _The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension_ was on the menu. "Said he felt like a heel."

"Well… he should!" Steph was now sawing her way through the toaster waffles. Discovering that they were just as burnt on the inside as they were out, she handed them to Cass and headed for the whiteboard. "C'mon, Cass, it's detective time! Let's get dangerous!"

Dumping the offending waffles down the sink, Cass rushed to join Steph as the new Robin uncapped a marker with a flourish.

"Alright, let's review the facts. At approximately twelve oh seven last night, Rupert Lawrence drank a half-quart of gasoline, then lit himself on fire. The gas station attendant is the only witness and said that he did it to himself, no one else was present to force him. So, option one, the witness is lying."

Steph wrote **1. Liar, liar, pants on fire** on the whiteboard.

"Option two, some kind of brainwashing. Someone kidnapped Rupert, turned him into a sleeper agent like in that one old movie, and made him set himself on fire as part of some larger scheme."

**2. Day of the Condor** appeared on the whiteboard in bold lettering.

"Option three, mind control. We have a meta on our hands who can mess with people's heads." (**Vulcan Mind Meld**.) "Option four, bad trip. Some drugs, either taken voluntarily or otherwise, messed up Larry's day but good." (**Harold & Kumar**) "Right, any questions?"

Cass raised her hand.

Steph pointed at her. "Yes, you."

"You know I can't read, right?"

Steph turned to the whiteboard again. "Alright, let's get to work. Cass, you check to see when was the last time anyone saw Rupert before he fried himself, see if you can disprove the brainwashing theory. I'll get on the horn with Oracle, see if I can scrounge up an autopsy. If nothing pans out, we pay our own visit to the gas station attendant. Let's get to it!"

_I remember not being lonely all the time. I remember having lots of friends. They came to me broken and frail and weak and I made them whole. I gave them a family, a roof over their heads, and they loved me for it. It hurt so much to send them back out into the world, knowing how cruel and heartless it could be. Sometimes they came back, so bruised and swollen that they were almost unrecognizable. My poor children…_

But then they all moved away. All my children and servants and friends. I felt empty inside. For so very long, I felt hollow…

So I decided to make some new friends. Like good ol' Rupert. Rupert never wanted to realize his full potential. He thought it was sick, the things inside him. He kept them all bottled up where no one can see. What fun is that, I ask you? I helped Rupert, but was he grateful? Noooooo. He tried to burn the images out. As if a little fire could drive me away.

But that's alright. That's okay. I've found a new friend. My new friend is a new father, with a lovely wife and a baby that drives him absolutely _**nuts**__. There's a whisper in the back of his head that tells him how to deal with that. I'm going to make it into a scream…_

"Hot of the press!" Steph called as she received the e-mail from Oracle. She forwarded the relevant portion to Cass' computer. "Look over the gas station attendant's interview, tell me if he's anything less than useful."

Cass did so, the computer taking her voice commands and cuing up the tape.

Steph examined her other theories. Hmm. Coroner report's tox screen was negative. That ruled out drugs. Girlfriend identified the body, said she'd last seen him that very morning. Ruled out brainwashing. That just left…

"He's telling the truth," Cass said, moving over to Steph's shoulder. 

Nodding, Steph steepled her fingers under her chin. "Then we're looking at a new supervillain, someone who can… override people's self-preservation instincts." She turned to Cass. "Call Tim. I'm going to need a little more help on this one."

"I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight."

The words seemed frosty, like dry ice, but Tim had known Steph long enough it was just an act, her faking anger until he made an obligatory act of contrition. "What, like a date?"

Steph's mingled reaction was clear even over the phone. "No, like a… team-up. God, I thought you read comic books. Superheroes have team-ups all the time!"

Tim sagged down into a chair and hoped that his world-weary body language would somehow translate through the phone lines. "First, I'm not a superhero. Second, don't those team-ups usually involve the heroes fighting?"

"I wouldn't know, you're the big nerd, Poindexter. Now get your ass to the next street over, I'll pick you up."

"I'm not doing it, Steph, I need my sleep."

"I'll be waaaaaaaaiting."

With that, Steph hung up. Tim stared at the phone for a moment, hung up, resolved that he wouldn't go, and left in five minutes.

Tim looked at everything but Stephanie. For some reason, that red and green costume had suddenly become an eyesore. He hadn't noticed before but the Redbird's control consoles had little Post-It notes attached to them, explaining their functions in loopy handwriting. The Is were dotted with hearts.

"Don't you think you owe me…"

"I'm sorry," Tim said, so quickly that they were almost speaking at the same time.

There was a brief awkward pause as Tim hid his grin with his hand and Steph only smiled out of the corner of her mouth that wasn't facing Tim.

"I don't mean to nag, you know."

"I know."

"It's just… it's so hard sometimes, ya know? Everyone looks at me and they hate me for not being you."

"Nobody hates you," Tim insisted.

"Yes, they do. I used to be able to talk to people. People like Dick and Barbara and… and I thought they were my friends. But ever since you left and I took over, they treat me like it's my fault." Steph's hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "It's all business with them and I keep wondering if it's some kind of Bat-hazing ritual and I wish it were because maybe then it would end and you and Cass are all I have left…"

"Are you crying?" As soon as he asked, Tim regretted the question. Where was it written that he had to develop an addiction to shoe leather, he was putting his foot in his mouth so much?

"No, I'm not."

She was, but Tim nodded anyway. "My mistake."

"Was it like this for you? After Jason?"

"No. There were a lot of… open arms. I was the Great Red Hope, the guy that was going to save Batman from himself… I think you would've done the job better. I always seem to leave it half-done."

"Some people you can't save."

"I guess not."

They drove in silence, but halfway there Steph reached for the gear shift and Tim reached for the radio and when their hands collided, Tim took the time to give her hand a supportive squeeze through the green glove.

Steph let out a small sigh and held onto his hand when he tried to pull back. "Tim, there's something you should know…"

Just at that moment, the multipurpose video display, currently showing their GPS position on Gotham's streets, went translucent and a live feed of Batman's face was superimposed over it. Tim couldn't tell who broke the handhold faster, him or Steph, but he could tell that Steph went rigid at the sight of Bruce.

"Robin, there's a hostage situation on Fourth and Northham. A man has brandished a gun and threatened to kill his family. Gun records show he's armed with a single Remington Model 7600 Synthetic, 18.5 inch barrel. Two hostages, his wife and infant daughter. Handle it."

"Yes sir." She shut off the video and swerved onto a sidestreet.

To Tim, the interaction seemed… off. Batman was more gruff than usual, not so much giving orders as… making a challenge. His tone even seemed to be slightly mocking, condescending. And Steph seemed unusually subservient, not giving any of her usual sass or backtalk. Maybe it was just his imagination, trying to comfort him that Steph wasn't as close to Bruce as had been. Then again, no one was ever really close to Bruce…

"Cops'll never make it in time." Steph reached into the glove compartment and handed Tim a headset. "I figure we park a block or two away, insert via rooftop. You cover me. Remember how to handle one of these?"

Tim put on the headset. "Hope no one has a camera phone…"

Steph handed him a green domino mask. "I always carry a spare, just in case the main one gets damaged."

"Convenient."

"Girl has to look her best."

Tim and Steph watched as the Redbird transformed into an ordinary sports sedan. "So, you and Cass, eh?" Tim said.

Steph , standing next to him, turned. "What, you think I'm so hung up on you that the only way I can move on is to start eating at the Y? Typical male fantasy. We're just friends. I comfort her sometimes. There's nothing sexual about it. She doesn't even know what sex is. I'm more like a…"

"Mother figure?"

Steph fired a grapple line up and began climbing towards the roof. "Sometimes, I guess."

Tim halted her upward motion by grabbing onto her cape. "Steph… she's not a child. She's not your baby."

"**You think I don't know that!?**" Steph paused, pulling her cape from Tim's grasp and starting up the line again. "Stop picking fights with me, Drake. It's not fun anymore."

Tim climbed up after her.

From a tree in the front yard, Tim watched through the infrared binoculars which rendered the suburban house into a red-tinged X-ray vision. "One hostile, armed, alone. He's in the living room."

Atop the house, Steph tied a de-cel line around the chimney top. "The one with the _big_ window?"

"Yup."

Steph's voice crackled through the radio link. "Hostages?"

"In the baby's room, upstairs. Can't tell if they're alive or dead; either way they're not moving much."

Steph looped the line around her wrist and stepped to the edge of the rooftop, ready to dismount. "Tell me when he's facing away from the window."

"Confirm. He's looking out the window." Sirens announced themselves in the background. "Incoming cops."

"Yes, I do have ears as well, thank you."

Apparently, so did the hostile. "Shit, he's headed upstairs!"

"Going in."

Steph kicked off the roof.

"**Steph!**" Tim shouted into the suddenly empty night sky.

The de-cel line gripped Steph, turned her momentum into a mighty swing back towards the house, like rappelling on acid. The hostile was halfway up the steps when Steph swung through the window, turning OSHA-consulted safety glass into a free-floating matrix of shards.

Robin hit the ground running.

The hostile was quick, Steph gave him that. There was ten feet, not to mention a dinner table, between her and him. From his high ground, he opened fire. Steph ducked down and the blast ripped a hole through her cape and went on to obliterate some of the glass still hovering behind her.

The remaining glass hit the ground like so much spilled salt.

Steph bounded over the table, parting her legs in a butterfly split to clear the centerpiece.

The hostile pulled back on the handgrip, pulling a slide rail. This pulled back a slide located underneath the chamber, putting pressure on the breech block and causing that to move backward as well. Simultaneously, the locking block moved downwards out of firing position and retracting the firing pin. The spent round was ejected and sailed over the handrail.

Steph reached the landing, the tile white and gleaming. There was a squeaking sound as her boots landed on it, sliding a little. Her ankles slammed into the first step and she pitched forward.

The slide came in contact with the hammer, moving it downwards onto a spring. Once the spring was fully compressed, the sear locked on the hammer and held it in cocked position. The slide then depressed a switch which moved the carrier upwards, forcing the round the carrier was holding into the chamber.

Steph scrambled up the stairs on all fours.

Pulling the handgrip forward, the hostile caused the bolt to move towards the front of the receiver, fully chambering the loaded round. The hostile pulled the trigger just as Steph lunged at him.

Steph's forearm slapped at the underside of the rifle, angling it upwards just as it went off. The shot caused an upside-down volcano to erupt in the ceiling and plaster scattered everywhere as Steph grabbed the hostile by the collar and slammed his head in-between two balusters. She proceeded to kick him in the ribs until he dropped the rifle. It clattered down the steps.

Placing a foot on his back, Robin stepped over the defeated hostile and onto the next step. Then she reached down and securely fastened his wrists together with a plastic clamp. "Do you know what Professor X's one weakness is?" she asked the hostile.

"What?" he replied, more out of confusion at the question than wanting to know the answer.

Kicking him solidly in the gut, Steph dislodged him from the balusters (which snapped like toothpicks) and sent him tumbling down the stairs to land in a heap at the bottom. 

"Stairs."

The entire confrontation had taken place in the space of a few seconds.

"Steph, do you read? Steph, answer me!" Tim's voice was panicked and insistent over the radio link. Steph tapped her headset once, opening the channel.

"My name is Robin."

4. Asylum

The figure had stood by the chimney like a macabre Santa Claus, pulling and prodding at the rope Steph had left tied to it. He was a good six and a half feet tall by Tim's reckoning, with a wide-brim hat and a tattered, charcoal-colored longcoat covering his hefty frame.

"Fine, _Robin_," Tim hissed into the radio, trying to keep his voice down. "I have an unknown subject on the roof, near your location. He's…"

The figure waved at Tim. Tim felt numb for a second, then hesitantly waved back.

Tipping his hat to the lad, the figure suddenly took off, bounding away from rooftop to rooftop.

Tim jumped from the tree he was in, grabbing onto the gutter of the house by the fingertips and pulling himself up onto the roof in a flash. In a heartbeat he was in pursuit of the figure.

"Subject is fleeing, I am in pursuit."

"Negative! Tim, for Christ's sake, you don't have any weapons…"

He wasn't listening. He was too busy using his bo staff to pole-vault to the next rooftop.

By this time, Steph was already scurrying up the trellis to the rooftop. The voice in her ear came as a surprise.

"Robin, go back and check on the hostages. I'll handle this…"

Steph's jump didn't quite make it to the next house, but she'd factored that into her calculations. She landed on a trampoline in the backyard and that boosted her back up to the rooftop that Tim was just now jumping off.

"Screw that, I'm no baby-sitter. Cops can handle it."

She could see the dull red of Tim's now-trademark sweater up ahead, fading into the distance. Cutting across the narrow beam atop a swingset, she made it to the next roof.

"You'll only distract me, turn back!"

"If you want to be Robin so bad, you shouldn't have quit! So either listen to what _I'm_ saying or get the hell out of my way!"

They weren't even bothering with the communicators now, just shouting across the void between them.

"_Trouble in paradise, kiddies?_" The voice was languorous, devious, and though it seemed to surround them, it obviously came from the fleeing man ahead of them.

"Alright, _to hell with this._" Steph drew a long-range Birdarang from her belt. "Tim, duck!"

She threw the Birdarang straight and true. Tim heard its faint whisper as it cut through the air and ducked down as it narrowly shaved over his head. Continuing onward, the Birdarang slammed into the figure and stuck there, impaled in his back.

The man kept on running.

Steph was dumbfounded. "What the f…" So much so that she didn't notice the skylight until she had fallen through it.

Tim kept up the chase.

Steph pulled herself up, brushing flecks of glass off her body once she had snapped her shoulder back into place. "Why do they always put the coffee table right below where we fall?"

She was about to shoot a grapple line up to continue the pursuit when a Jack Russell terrier ran in from the kitchen.

"Hello, doggie…"

The terrier growled ominously.

"_Nice_ doggie…"

The pursuit was getting serious. The wind whipped at Tim and every step he took increased the possibility of a slip or fall that would, at this altitude, likely break his neck. Shedding his sweater, Tim realized he had already soaked through his T-shirt with sweat. Back in the good old days, he could've kept up a chase like this all night. He'd gotten lazy and now he was paying the price for it.

His mind was still as sharp as ever, though. The suspect had an advantage over him. At the apex of the man's leaps, gravity seemed to stop acting on him until he was within reach of his destination. He wasn't so much jumping as jumping, hovering, and landing.

As abruptly as it had begun, the race ended. The man leapt off a roof, cut a swath through the branches of a tree on his way down to hit the ground striding. When Tim caught up, he saw the man was standing on one end of a seesaw, the other end balanced by apparently… nothing at all.

"_You wanted to talk to me?_" the man asked softly.

Acting on autopilot, the Redbird pulled to a stop at the curb. Steph, fingering the dog-bitten hole in her costume that matched the one in her cape, walked to it just as the homeowner came barreling out of his house.

"Who are you!?" he demanded. "How'd you get in? Where's the goddamned guard dog!?"

Stepping into the Redbird's cockpit, Steph took a moment to answer: "Have you checked the freezer?"

The man paced through the playground, kicking up clods of dirt playfully. "_In a few hours, it'll be dawn. Time for kids to get up, go to school, come here, play their reckless little hearts out. Warms the cockles of my heart. There's no more divine madness than childhood… except maybe love. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much of either._" Reaching out with one finger, he idly gave the carousel a spin. "_Perhaps you could help me with that… son._"

Tim held out the bo staff like a spear, keeping the stranger at arm's length. "What were you doing back there? What did you do to that man?"

"_My job._" Under his fedora, Tim could just make out the man's shy smile. "_I cured him._"

"Cured him? Of what!"

"_His… veneer of civilization, his pretensions at social betterment. I tore it all down and showed him who he __**really**__ was… what was inside of him._"

Tim sneered. He couldn't help it. This guy was setting off every danger sense in his head. "And what was that?"

"_Rage. Pure rage._" The man took a step towards Tim. "_Would you like me to show you?_"

Bringing the staff higher up, Tim took an involuntary step back. "Keep away from me!"

"_Such shyness! Is that any way to treat an old friend?_"

"Old friend? I've never seen you before in my life."

"_Oh no? Think. Think __**hard**__. Think back to Uncle Joey. You remember Uncle Joey, don't you?_"

The man began relentlessly advancing on Tim. Tim knew he should fight back, should counter with his own intimidating action, should do _anything_ but yield control of the situation, but he couldn't help it. He backed up, the staff feeling more and more inadequate to the task of fighting this… thing.

"_You remember going to visit Uncle Joey in that cabin up in the woods. Mommy and daddy left you all alone, just you and Uncle Joey, remember?_"

It was important to stay rational, the most important thing was staying rational… "How do you know all this?"

"_Uncle Joey wasn't quite right in the head. You remember what happened next, don't you Timmy? You remember what made you the way you are. Suspicious, paranoid… alone. You manage to fool everyone else, but deep down inside you know you're not like the others. You're not… quite… normal… are you? All because of what you saw that day…_"

Tim ineffectually jabbed the staff forward. The man batted it aside, getting closer and closer.

"_I could let it out for you, Timmy. I can give you the key, but only you can open the door. Wouldn't you like that? Wouldn't you like to give up on all the pretending… to finally stop running from __**who you really are**_"

"Shut up!" Tim tripped over the edge of a sandbox, tumbling backwards into it. The impact kicked up swirls of sand particles and the staff rolled away from him. "**Shut up**!"

"_You went where you weren't supposed to go and you saw what you weren't supposed to see. And you, boy detective, couldn't see it coming… kept asking yourself 'why?' Because deep down, you knew you should've seen it coming, you should've done something about it…_"

Scooping up a handful of sand, Tim threw it in the man's face, distracting him long enough for Tim to roll to the side and scoop up his staff. He came to his feet, holding the staff in a form 12 position, lower half parallel to his forearm for defense, upper half extending from one hand for offense.

"Didya see that coming?" Tim asked, because in situations like these you were supposed to taunt the villain.

He swung his now-shortened staff, trading in reach for power. The first blow took the man at the side of the waist, the second two in his ribs, the fourth across his sternum, and the fifth a solid stab into his throat. The man backed up, gagging slightly.

"_Very good! I can see it's scratching at the back of your eyeballs, trying to get out. But it's okay because I'm not __**really**__ a person, I'm just a hostile, right? The Bat has trained you well in his own specific pathology._"

"You don't know anything!" Tim roared as he swung the staff around, catching the unheld half in his other hand, now holding it like a rifle.

Tim Drake swung it into the villain like it was a baseball bat and he was Babe Ruth on steroids. The former Robin could swear he saw the man's body distort and collapse in on itself where his hits landed, but spring back into normalcy when he stopped.

Suddenly, with uncanny speed, the man caught the staff in the palm of his hand. And then he seemed to… _slide_ down the staff towards, Tim, who just then found himself flying backwards through the air. He hit the top of a swing set with bonejarring force, was sucked down by gravity, and landed atop a swing, his belly in the seat, hands and feet dragging in the gravel.

The man held the staff in his hands for a moment, examining it, before snapping it in two. That was impossible. There was no way… simply no way… for an ordinary man to break the reinforced steel of the bo staff. It was as if, all of a sudden, the universe made no sense.

Throwing the broken staff aside, the man grinned at Tim. "_Now you're getting it. So… is that all you've got?_"

The high-beams of the Redbird flared on suddenly, catching the man directly in its path. He turned just in time to see Robin surfing atop the hood of the car before she pressed a button on her remote control, causing the Redbird to slam on the brakes and sending her sailing through the air, screaming "Gratuitous acts of senseless violence are my forte!" She slammed into the man feetfirst, intent on delivering a truly destructive dropkick.

Something snapped.

It was her ankle.

The man rocked back on his heels slightly as Steph fell to the ground, moaning.

"You're such an adorable urchin, Max," Tim said, obligatorily.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, the man acted as if he had unexpectedly run into an old classmate. "_Stephanie Brown! Long time no see! I haven't seen you since you were…_" He held his hand at waist-level to indicate how tall she had been while Steph fought her way to her feet unsteadily. "_Well, I've never seen you, but I've heard of you. Your babysitter won't shut up about you. You know, his only regret is that he didn't finish the job and pop that cherry like bubblegum when he had the chance. Not that it made any difference in the grand scheme of things…_"

Every doubt Tim had ever had about Steph's ability as Robin faded away when he saw the speed she drew her Robin darts with. And new ones rushed in to replace them as one thudded home into the man's heart, the other into his groin.

"Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things," Steph repeated in something more like a growl than anything else as she drew another Birdarang.

Tim would later remember saying "Steph, no!" as Robin… Steph… threw the Robin dart squarely between the man's eyes where it embedded itself, but it could've just been in his own head.

The impact caused the man's head to jerk back and his hat fell off. In the dim light, Tim caught a glimpse of heavy scars running from the edges of the man's lips to just below his ears. Then all his attention was focused on the man's hand reaching up, grasping the Robin dart, and pulling it out. A trickle of blood flowed from between his horribly, horribly alive eyes.

"_You're getting it too! Quick learners, you Robins. Now, where was I? Ah yes…_" he stepped forward, extending a hand towards the shocked Steph. "_Unfinished business…_"

She grabbed his hand, twisting it around as she vaulted off her good leg, twisting his hand at the wrist while, with her other hand, she grabbed his arm at the elbow and twisted in the opposite direction. It was a very painful hold, designed to hyperextend all three joints if the victim attempted to break free. Tim knew it wouldn't be enough.

"Robin, duck!" And with that, he launched a kick designed to make the man's elbow bend in a way it was never designed to.

He had intended for the arm to break, but he hadn't intended for it to be totally severed. Yet that was closer to what happened, as his foot seemed to pass right through the limb with a horridly crisp, churning sound, stretching the fabric on the other end of the sleeve so tightly that one could see the tread of his tennis shoe right through the cloth.

The man spun away, leaving Steph clasping his glove, and what appeared to be some form of sod leaked out of his now void sleeve. For a moment, all three seemed to be suffuxed with an equal amoutn of disbelief as the very last of the muscle, bone, and skin that _should not be soil_ dribbled through the man's cuff. Tim just shook his head, dumbfounded, before screaming with a mountain of frustation and rage…

"WHO ARE YOU!?"

The man kicked up his hat with the heel of his foot and put it back on. "_Don't you recognize me, dear boy? I'm Arkham._" He pointed at them with his good (that is to say, remaining) hand. "_You just wait until this grows back!_" That said, Arkham catapulted upwards as if being yanked on by an invisible string, disappearing into the night sky.

Tim watched him fly for a moment. Then collapsed. Steph did likewise. Lying on their backs in the cool grass, breathing heavily, Steph turned her head to Tim and said simply "Well, at least things can't get much worse."

That's when the sprinklers turned on.

5. The Drive Home

After collecting samples of the pile of sod that had once been a human being's forearm and the entire glove, Tim helped Steph back to the car, where she got into the passenger seat, explaining that she couldn't use the pedals with her sprained ankle. Tim took the hint and got behind the wheel, which was when Steph noticed…

"You're bleeding."

Tim followed her pointing finger to his forehead. He touched it and his fingers came back wet with blood. "I've had worse."

Steph was already reaching below her seat for a med-kit. She pulled out a length of self-sealing gauze and pressed it to his temple. He started up the car and started driving away, pulling off his mask as soon as he realized it was still there with a note of almost distaste in his body language They drove in silence for a moment and Tim felt the obligation to try and make an attempt to reach out.

"I used to keep the med-kit in the trunk."

"That makes no sense. How would you get to it in an emergency?"

Smiling, Tim said "I guess I didn't put much thought into it."

"Who needs to bleed, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Pull over here," Steph said in a commanding tone. Tim obeyed.

They drove between houses under construction for a moment before coming to a dead-end. Past the sawhorses marking the distinction between the road and the wilderness, there was an excellent view of the sun coming up, unspoiled by the pollution and grime of the city behind them.

"This is it?" Tim asked after a moment.

"Pretty much."

"Cool."

Tim sat back in his seat and picked at his bandage. Steph rested her feet on the dashboard.

"I'm glad it was you," she said at last.

Tim turned his head and saw her face illuminated in the first rays of the morning sun. The light rendered the green mask into a bleak shadow.

"I never told anyone else what happened… what _could've_ happened," Steph continued, not looking at Tim, but obviously feeling her words out carefully all the same. "And before you say anything, I know it wasn't my fault and I know I shouldn't be ashamed, but that's not the same thing as wanting to put it on a T-shirt, okay?" She looked over at him, apparently to confirm it, and Tim nodded. Steph looked back at the rising sun and seemed to be very old all of a sudden. "If it had been someone else, they would've… I wouldn't want them to find out that way. I wouldn't want them to find out, period. So… I'm glad it was you. Who was there with me."

"It was just a thing…" Tim began dismissively, obviously about to let loose with some think-nothing-of-it sentiments when Steph cut him off.

"No, it wasn't, Tim. It's more than that. I'm… I'm glad you're there for me. I'm glad that you're always there for me. I wouldn't have taken the job if you weren't and I hope you know that, but since I'm not sure, I'm telling you that. Do you understand?"

"Yeah… I think I do."

"Good." Steph shifted in her seat and leaned against the car window. "Sunrise's getting boring, let's go home."

Tim reached out and touched her shoulder lightly, just lightly enough for her to notice and turn to look at him. "Just so you know… I'm happy to be there for you. And I always will be."

Steph's smile was brighter than the sunrise. "I know."

When they arrived at the Cave, Steph was already half-asleep. Tim roused her enough for her to drag herself out of the cockpit, then he grabbed her hand. She was beside the car, he leaning across the door, the top of the Redbird retracted, turning it into a convertible. Steph looked at him as he checked for Cass and, satisfied she wasn't present, said something.

"He told me things too. Arkham. Things that… no one should have any way of knowing. A long time ago, my dad took me to this retreat in the mountains. Family reunion, male bonding, crap like that. My Uncle Joey, was… he was a sick man. Going through tough times. And he…" Tim bit his lip. "One day my dad left us alone…"

"Tim, you don't have to tell me anything."

Tim looked up at her slowly. "It's only fair, Steph. If we can't be fair to ourselves, why are we doing this?" He looked back down. "I found him in his den. He had a rope around his neck and it was… cutting into the flesh of his throat. His eyes were bulging out of his sockets and his tongue was bloated like a rotting fish." Tim gulped in air quickly, as if afraid he were going to run out. "My father always blamed me for what happened. He and Joey were close, so close, and I guess he thought that I should've… I don't know. Looking back, he probably was just glad I was okay, but back then… God, I thought he hated my guts. I was afraid of him. It's a terrible thing for a son to be afraid of his father. And when I saw Batman fighting the Penguin on that TV show… I wasn't afraid anymore. I don't know why. But that's how it started. Never told anyone that. Not even Dick or Kon. Not a one."

Steph bent down and kissed him softly on the top of the head. Continuing her descent into a kneel put them at eye level. Tim rested his head on the car door.

"I think we broke our record," she said.

"What record?"

"For the worst date we've ever been on."

"No arguing here." Tim paused for a moment. "That was a date, though?"

"Next time you can pick the restaurant," Steph joked as she leaned forward, resting her forehead against his

"And the movie," Tim insisted playfully. "I'm a dinner and a show kinda guy."

"Of course you are, superhero." Steph felt the warmth of his breath on her face and breathed it in. "So, don't I get a good night kiss?"

"It's seven in the morning."

"A good morning kiss then. Although that does seem a little 'how do you like your eggs in the morning' if you get my drift."

Tim's smile was wide and sincere. "Nothing ever gets you down, does it?"

"It's balance," Steph said, wishing she had brushed her teeth and flossed and taken a breath mint and gone to the dentist. "Yin and yang. Since nothing ever gets you up…"

His lips brushed against hers slowly, tantalizingly. "I can think of a few things…"

"You're not supposed to be here." The voice was crisp and clean and Tim jerked up so fast that Steph was left hanging for a minute, lips formed into a small breathless "o" that she quickly recovered from. Cass was walking down the spiral staircase that led up to the secret entrance in the roof, mask off. "This base is for active operatives only. You being here compromises security."

"Of course it does." Tim thought about going ahead with it, just kissing Steph and reducing his world to tongue and teeth and lips for a few blissful moments, see what Cass would say about _that_ in her broken English, but he had already opened his eyes and Steph was still wearing the mask. So he climbed out of the car.

"Tim…" Steph called after him.

He knew what she was going to ask before she asked it. "Sorry, Steph, but if I get home now I think I can bargain my death sentence down to a light maiming."

"Drake!" Cass' tone had softened a bit and Tim looked up at the Batgirl. "It was good seeing you again."

Tim smiled sadly. "Good being seen." And with that, he left.

Steph watched him go for a minute, until Cass walked up beside her. Doing a picture-perfect slow burn, Steph turned to the ex-assassin. "Cass, I realize none of us have male gentialia… but you do realize what a cock-block is, don't you?"


	2. Chapter 2

6. Morning After

After calling a cab, Tim booked it back to his parent's (and Dana's) apartment. He was able to brush off enough of his clothes to make them reassemble the usual wear and tear of a Gotham day, and luckily the cut on his forehead was easily covered up by a brushing his hair forward, Impulse style.

Upon arrival, he paid the Pakistani cabbie and took a small amount of pleasure in the man's reaction to being thanked in Urdu. Then he embarked on the long climb… okay, elevator ride… to the apartment.

Tim kept repeating to himself, over and over again, that the worst possible thing to do would be to cop an attitude. So, naturally, as soon as his father (having a pretty good idea what he had been up to) shoved him into a room to talk in private…

"Where have you been? Your mother and I have been worried sick!" It was a cliché, but as clichés go, a pretty good one. Jack rolled on: "Tell the truth!"

After holding his arms out, Tim let them fall and slap solidly against the sides of his body. "Alright, ya got me. I was with a girl."

"A girl," Jack repeated emotionlessly.

"Yeah. Don't worry, we weren't have sex, just saving a few lives. Newborn baby, her mother, and the father's going to get some much-needed psychiatric help. But I guess that doesn't matter to you, right?"

"Damn right it doesn't!" Jack roared. "You have such potential! You could be an astrophysicist or a brain surgeon or… or anything! And instead you choose to run around in tights punching people in the face. Do you have any idea how much of a waste that is?"

"It's what I like. It's what I'm good at. But I guess you don't care about that either."

"Who was she?"

"Who?"

"The girl you were with."

Tim looked down, sighing. "You know I can't answer that."

"You will… just not how you think."

With that, Jack stampeded out of the room and towards Tim's bedroom. Tim trailed behind him, reluctant, but unable to look away.

"Jack, what is it…?" Dana called as her husband pushed past her. He ignored her.

Leaning against the wall outside his doorway, Tim listened as his father rampaged through the room, finally triumphantly emerging with Tim's Blackberry.

"Let's see who you've been calling," Jack crowed victoriously as Tim did his best to appear blasé about the prospect. He hit the first number on the contact list and waited as the phone rang.

"You'd think no teenager had ever stayed out past curfew," Tim observed casually to his stepmother.

Whoever was on the other end picked up. "Is this Cassandra Cain?" Jack asked in his most parental voice.

"Speaking."

"Yes, can I speak to your father?"

"He's in jail."

"Your mother then."

"She's a world-class assassin, at large somewhere in the Afghani region." Cass paused for a moment. "You may have to hold."

Jack hung up and dialed a new number. "Great company you're keeping, Tim."

"If we're going to start passing the sins of the father on to the child, then I'm _really_ in trouble."

"Watch it, boy! You're skating on thin ice!" His call got through. "Hello, am I speaking to Mr. or Mrs. Kent?"

"Yes you are," Ma Kent's voice said over the phone. "What can I do for you?"

"Yes, I think our children might have been doing things last night without your knowledge."

"Not my boy. We live in Kansas."

Jack hung up and glared at Tim.

"Pen pals."

Dialing the next number, Jack took his eyes locked on Tim. "I hope this… Bart Allen… is someone normal."

Tim tried very, very hard to suppress his smirk.

"It's ringing," Jack announced. "Still ringing."

The machine picked up and Tim could hear the gruff voice of Max Mercury over the Blackberry's speakers. "You've reached the home of Max Crandall. If you're trying to reach me, please leave a message. If you're trying to reach my nephew, Bart Allen, please reconsider. Leave your message at the beep."

Jack hung up. "Nobody home."

Then there was a whoosh of air and Bart Allen appeared in their midst, shaking some mud off his oversized boots. "HeyTimwhat'dyouwanttoseemeabout?"

7. Breaking

"I finished the analysis on the… substance that came off codename Arkham," Oracle said, her floating funerary mask covering the black background on some of the stand-by monitors.

Steph, her injured foot soaking in a bucket of hot water that Cass had generously fetched for her, looked at the webcam that transmitted her to Oracle. "Can it wait a second? I'm Bejeweling."

"Steph!"

"Just kidding!" Steph minimized the Bejeweled window and pressed ACCEPT on the console. Instantly the multi-screens filled with Oracle's data. Appropriately enough, it was all Greek to Steph. "Ummm… you mind putting this in Nightwing terms?"

At the Clocktower, Barbara scowled at the insinuation, but pressed on. "That stuff is exactly what it looks like, soil."

"No radioactivity? No ectoplasm? Not a hint of weird science or magic? Dirt doesn't just start walking around and killing people. Besides, I saw his face. He looked… well, not human, but definitely fleshy."

"I don't know what to tell you, Girl Wonder. It's just plain, ordinary, dirt. With one caveat. I've traced the minerals and there's only one place this specific composition comes from."

"There always is," Steph groused.

"You're not gonna like this, it comes from…"

"Arkham?"

"How'd you know?"

"Feminine intuition. Send me everything you have on Arkham Asylum, I'll be in touch."

The Oracle mask disappeared and Steph began poring over the files, only taking the occasional snack break. Three hours later, Cass found her asleep at the console.

"Steph," Cass said as she tapped the girl in question on the shoulder.

Steph reared up, yawning and stretching, revealing a red patch on her cheek where the keyboard had indented itself upon her. "I may have to sleep with you tonight."

"…pardon?"

"This stuff," Steph continued, waving at the computer files. "Enough to give _me_ nightmares. Apparently, there are two Arkhams. Asylums, I mean. The first was before our time, got blown up by Bane and all the prisoners were relocated. That's where the soil came from. Now, ever since the explosion it's been abandoned, but I figure whatever this thing is we're fighting, Arkham original flava is its homebase. Tonight we'll hunt it down and…"

"You'll do nothing of the sort."

The voice came from the shadows and for a moment Steph panicked, thinking it was Arkham again. It wasn't. It was worse.

Batman stepped out of the darkness and held out his hand. "As of this moment, you're suspended from your duties as Robin. I'll need the keys to the Redbird back."

Steph's face went from confusion to anger to resignation in a matter of seconds as she realized who was responsible for her plight.

* * *

_Earlier_

Mercifully, Jack's fervor finally died down. Tim was left locked in his room, his computer's keyboard gone, with the promise that a man would be by soon to install bars on the windows. In the absence of his Blackberry, Tim pulled out the microtransmitter from his belt buckle.

"This is Robi… this is Tim, calling Batman. This is Tim, calling Batman, priority two. Come in Batman, over."

Tim knew that the signal would be routed through to Bruce's beeper and give a code phrase for "Call Tim next time you're alone." Within the space of two minutes, he heard Bruce's voice over the link.

"Do not persist in using your name over this line. Codename Robin is still an acceptable designation."

_Of course it i_s, Tim mouthed, hoping that Bruce couldn't pick _that_ up over the link.

"I need to talk to you about… the other Robin."

"Go ahead."

Bruce wasn't going to make this any easier for him. "Last night, I was helping her on a case…" and Tim could _feel_ Bruce stiffen, even across the airwaves. "We ran into a new meta and he… said things to her. Very bad things. She overreacted, used excessive force."

"How excessive?"

"She put three Robin darts in him, two in kill zones."

There was a long silence. "Is he dead?"

"No. Negative. He got away anyway."

There was another long silence. "What did he say to her?"

Tim was relieved to discover that, at the very least, there were some bounds of personal loyalty he wouldn't cross. "It's personal."

"Robin…" Bruce said, with something that wasn't quite a threat but wasn't quite irritation either in his voice.

"My name is Tim. I don't take orders from you."

The other man let it drop. "Thank you for reporting this. I'll be in touch."

The line went dead.

"No," Tim said as he threw the microtransmitter into the trash. "You won't."

* * *

_Now_

Stephanie Brown's (not Robin's) motor scooter burped and gurgled fuel as it "sped" towards its destination. Steph tried to keep from biting her tongue as the old vehicle sputtered and buzzed.

"Damn you Tim Drake."

* * *

Technically speaking, Steph didn't have to take the stairs, but she did anyway. It just made her madder and she wanted to have a nice berserker rage going. It was all Robin's fault. Tim's fault. Whatever.

"Damn you Tim Drake."

* * *

Dana opened the door to see a fresh-faced young woman, smiling pleasantly.

"Hi!" she said in a voice as cheery as her smile. "I'm here to see Tim Drake."

"Oh, I'll go get him."

Dana hustled off and moments later Tim appeared. "Oh, hey Steph."

Steph punched him in the face.

"Damn you Tim Drake!"

8. Dam Burst

_Now, far be it for me to criticize, but it strikes me that the main problem with people is repression. They deny who they truly are. You've got Van Gogh on Ritalin working at K-Mart, Einstein in summer school knocking erasers together to get all the chalk dust out. It strikes me that if people were to act on impulse, on instinct, we all would be much better off._

_Well, call me irresponsible, but you can hardly blame me for seeking to prove my little theory. Back in the old days, all I had was the crazies. Don't get me wrong, they were good company, but coming from a long line of scientists and doctors as I do, it strikes me that I need a control. I know what happens when you stick a maddie into the madhouse… but what happens when a normal is exposed to my tender, loving care?_

_Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just trying to help. I mean, what is this, Victorian England? Let's stop being ashamed of ourselves! If you wanna hit on someone that isn't your wife, you damn well start hitting on them. If you want to shoot up, tune in, and drop out; be my guest! If you want to have sex with a member of the same sex… or a goat for that matter… go for it! If you want to swerve your car to hit that annoying little punk on a bicycle, go nuts!_

_Go… nuts…_

_Donuts?_

_Huh. Guess that's one of those "God is dog spelled backwards" things. Should send that in to Wikipedia._

_My point is this: can you really blame me for what people do with this gift I give them? I free them from their inhibitions and what do they immediately do? Kill themselves in fits of self-loathing. Express those long-repressed hostilities with rifles. Is any of that my fault? I'm scratching away the surface and you attack me because you don't like what I find. Really, I'm just an innocent bystander in all this. You should be ashamed of yourselves._

_Because, I know, if I visited you, I'd find exactly what I found in my quote unquote "victims."_

_Now, where were we? Ahh, yes. Back to the story._

* * *

"You are such a little teacher's pet, Drake!" Steph hissed through clenched teeth as Tim doubled over, pinching his nose to stem the nosebleed she'd given him. "Always tattling on people! I bet you always reminded the teacher when she forgot to give the class homework."

"Perhaps," Tim said in his most reasonable, placating voice… which happened to be quite nasal owing to present circumstances, "it'd be best if we discussed this in private."

Steph followed him into his room looking like a bomb about to explode. As soon as Tim had shut the door, she did.

"What were you thinking!? Just when I was starting to build some trust with Bruce, you ruin everything! I haven't pulled a tenth of the crap you have and now I'm out on my ass! All because he listened to you!"

Tim reached out and gestured for her to calm down. "Steph, you tried to kill someone."

"He was a meta, you nitwit! They're all got superstrength and agility and whatnot!"

"So you knew, _for a fact_, that he wouldn't die?"

Steph, exasperated, turned away from him and paced a distance. "Not with a hundred percent certainty, no."

"Well, gee, Steph, let me do the math. Less than a hundred percent certainty… carry the one… equals a one or greater percent chance that he might end up a hundred percent dead."

She wheeled on him. "And would that be so bad? He _killed_ someone. He tried to kill a woman with her baby, for God's sake. You telling me he deserves to live, huh?"

"Is this about that…" Tim paused, wondering if he should really say what he was thinking. He made his choice. "Or about how he made you feel?"

Moving closer to him, Steph didn't stop walking until she was right in his face. The air seemed to crackle around them. "I was _never_ out of control. Not for one minute."

"That's not how I saw it. And Batman agrees with me."

"Oh, here we go with the appeal to the authority. That's supposed to end the argument? You might as well tell me God's on your side, right? I wasn't trying to kill him and he deserved to die anyway."

"You know, I'm getting this kind of oxymoron vibe from that last sentence…"

Steph slapped him.

He stared at her for a moment, trying to reconcile the angry young woman with the Spoiler he'd known, then gave up as she waved an angry finger in his face. "You're not Robin anymore. Stop trying to define me. Stop trying to control me. Just… stop."

She turned away from him just as there was a knock at the door. Tim turned his head immediately. "Come in!"

Steph put on her shiny-happy-people face along with Tim as Dana walked in, holding a plate of Bagel Bites. "Snack?"

"Thanks Mrs. Drake."

"Thanks Dana."

Dana set the plate down on Tim's desk after both teenagers had taken a handful. "So, what are you kids up to?"

"Just… rehearsing for a play!" Tim said.

"Shakespeare!" Steph added helpfully.

"I didn't know you were an actor."

Tim and Steph exchanged a pointed glance. "Well, I…"

"Tim's quite the actor, Mrs. Drake," Steph said. "He'll _act_ like your best friend one moment, then stab you in the back the next!"

Tim winced as he waited for Dana's reaction.

"…Are you playing Brutus?"

"Et tu!" Tim quipped.

"Well, I'll leave you to it then."

Dana shut the door behind her as Tim and Steph went to get some mini-pizzas.

"She listening at the door?" Steph asked.

"My dad too, probably."

"Oh, wretched villainy!" Steph cried melodramatically. "That thou who was once like a brother to me now art inclined to be my slayer!"

"Brother?" Tim mouthed, then whispered "You sound more like the Mighty Thor than Julius Caesar."

Steph slapped him again. "Speak, cur! Thy silence damns thee!"

Tim rubbed his cheek and asked sotto voce. "Must you keep up with the hitting? I thought actors pulled their punches!"

"I'm method," Steph sotto voced back.

"Your words are… unfair and impetuous, my lady! What you par…ceived as treachery was but my attempt to help thee!"

"Help me! … mine… myou… my art… me?"

"By thy brazen and impetuous actions," Tim said, trying hard not to sink to the depths of drama queen that Steph was plumbing, "thou wert in danger of becoming something thou art not."

"Tim…"

"Permit me a respite to finish, my lady…"

"Tim, I think they're gone."

"Oh." Tim ate a Bagel Bite. "Look, I didn't mean for this to happen. I just wanted Bruce to rein you in a little, not fire you."

"I don't need to be reined in. I need you to trust me."

"Steph…" Tim took a step closer to her. "How can I trust you when I don't even trust myself?"

"What are you talking about? I've seen you fight. You trust yourself plenty."

Tim reached out and ran a hand through her hair. "Not when I'm with you."

Steph pushed his hand away slowly, sadly, then shoved him back. "Don't you understand? I _hate_ this! I hate that we fight all the time! I hate that I don't know how to feel about you! I hate that I can't stop thinking about you! I wish we could just… just…"

She kissed him. It escalated quickly.

It all happened so fast that it took Tim a minute to realize he was kissing back. Her hands ran over his chest until the distance between them closed and they wandered around to feel the strong muscles of his back, running up the length of his spine slowly, languidly, as if she had all the time in the world… or as if she didn't know the meaning of time. He could feel her breasts pressed against his chest, her scent permeating the air.

And then they came up for air and Steph taught him that a truly passionate kiss wasn't just _a_ kiss, it was a series of kisses with a staccati all their own, like a drumbeat or the pounding of the surf. Then suddenly she was leaping _on to_ him, her weight transferring to him so fast that he almost fell on his ass, slender legs and thighs wrapping around his waist with a firm, steady grip. Through her jeans he could feel that the musculature of her legs was hard as granite.

"Perfect…" Steph breathed against his cheek and chin when the kiss broke. There was a feverish, surreal quality in both their expressions as Tim looked deep in Steph's eyes. There was no mask this time. Maybe there never had been.

The girl let out a small gasp of surprise as Tim pressed her against the wall, pinning her there with his body and kissing her again. Steph felt his hot breath against her neck, she felt Tim's lips brushing against her throat, the tip of his tongue flicking at her earlobe, and her unfocused stare took in a diffused image of his spiky hair, which brushed against her face as she hugged him close to her chest, making him a part of her. She hugged Tim to her with all her might, trying to force him into her with sheer willpower.

A tremor ran through Steph, she stiffened, and Tim pulled back a little, confused and apprehensive. Steph stared at his face; ran a finger down the line of his jaw, then kissed him one last time, bittersweetly, on the lips. "You tell anyone this happened, I'll fit you for a full-body cast."

"...You probably want to get down."

Tim backed up from the wall and Steph stepped down, ignoring the waking hard-on between his legs. She tripped a little upon getting off him, her legs wobbling as if she were drunk, and he steadied her with his hands; they both chuckled and Steph pressed another kiss to Tim's lips.

"My parents…" Tim said, pulling himself away with an actual physical effort, "are right outside the door."

"That's what makes it so much fun," Steph whispered, her mouth at his ear. "We could do this thing…"

"We will… if you still want to." Tim hugged her. "But we have problems and this won't…"

"Solve them, I know. I'm not trying…"

"I know," Tim said, trying very hard to ignore the scent of her hair as the embrace lingered, her warmth fading into his body. "But it's… a part of it, and it shouldn't be. We should be doing this because we love each other…"

"And do you? Love me, I mean?"

Tim looked at her for a long moment. "I don't know."

"I do." Steph walked to the door. "I'll, uh, see you around."

"Right. We still have a dress rehearsal to do."

Smiling, Steph opened the door. Jack and Dana were in the hall conspicuously close to the doorway.

"You know," Jack said suspiciously. "I don't recognize that dialogue from Shakespeare."

"It's a reimagining."


	3. Chapter 3

Tim was lying in bed, buried in an autobiography of the Blue Beetle ("Seriously, We're Not Gay: My _Friendship_ With Booster Gold") when Jack opened the door and knocked on it, in that order.

"Tim? Timmy?"

Tim's eyes kept tracking from left to right, left to right…

"Look," Jack said as he closed the door behind him. "I know you think I'm butting in where I'm not wanted and issuing edicts on things I don't understand. And that might be true, to some extent. But you've also got to accept that I'm the adult and I know what's best for you. You think I never wanted to bust some heads when I was young and the world was going tits up?"

Left to right, left to right…

Jack sat down beside Tim and put an arm around him. "Tim, do you trust my judgment on this? I know it's hard. But let me tell you something, when I was your age… I thought all adults were dumbasses too."

Tim drew an index card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Jack.

**Trying to bond with me by using light profanity as a flattery to my maturity won't work.**

"So, that's it. You're going to give me the silence treatment? You can't keep quiet forever."

Tim handed him another card.

**I've been trained to resist interrogation.**

"Interrogation!? Tim, I am your _father_."

**I am a captive. The fact that this captivity is sanctioned by society does not make the metaphorical bars any less real.**

"You know, there's no possible way you can predict every single thing I say and have a response for it."

**It's easier if you make yes or no statements.**

"Everybody was kung-fu fighting!"

**Those cats were fast as lightning.**

* * *

The kitchen of the Clocktower was sufficient to feed a platoon, with a meat locker full of spare ribs, walk-in freezer, dishwashers, sinks, stoves, and generally everything the staff of a four-star hotel might need to feed their patrons. Right now, Dinah Lance was only focused on one food item.

"Don't tell her I said this…" Dinah said as she scraped some peanut butter onto a bowl of vanilla ice cream. "But Barbara pigs out on ice cream when she has nasty break-ups too."

She handed the bowl to Steph, who devoured it like she hadn't eaten anything in days. "I think this is it. I don't know if we're going to get back together this time."

"Oh, honey… it can't be all that bad."

"I punched him."

"Oh."

"In the face."

"You, uh… want some sprinkles on that ice cream?"

"No."

Dinah, leaning against the stainless steel refrigerator across from Steph, started eating out of the carton. Steph, sitting atop a counter, morosely picked at her melting ice cream.

"Then we started kissing. There was tongue."

Dinah dropped her spoon. "How… much… tongue?"

"On a scale of one to ten? Tonguealicious." Steph looked up. "Hey, how come you get to eat out of the carton?"

"Because I'm an adult, thus I get to drive, drink, and have really nice boobs," Dinah said as she fetched a clean spoon, then realized there wasn't enough left in the pint to justify the expenditure. "Look, all that really matters is do you love him."

"I think so… I don't know, it's a tough question!" Steph jumped down from the counter, abandoning her ice cream bowl to Dinah's tender mercies. She paced like a caged tiger as Dinah began eating her leftovers. "One minute he can be charming and witty and just… everything you want from a guy, the next he's just this asshole and I don't know what I ever saw in him. To say nothing of the sexual attraction, which doesn't make things any easier! I don't know, have you ever been in love with a total jerk that you can't help but be in love with?"

Dinah shot Steph a hard glance. "Maybe once or twice."

Steph turned around in her pacing and saw that Dinah was eating her ice cream. "Hey! I wasn't done with that!"

"This stuff goes straight to your hips," Dinah said with her mouth full. "You'll thank me later."

Pouting, Steph turned her mind back to Tim and resumed pacing. "He just… I try to reach out for him and I don't know if he'll be there for me. That's the bottom line. I never know what I'm going to get, the man or the mask. Back when he was Robin, I hated myself for wanting to make him choose… and now I resent him for choosing the man and still not choosing me."

Setting down the ice cream down, Dinah grabbed Steph's shoulders, stopping her long walk. "Steph. You know I think of you like a… well, not a daughter. A younger sister. Not _much_ younger, of course, but still… my point is, I want you to listen to my advice. From everything you've told me, there are things you hate about him. So, do you love him more than you hate those things? And, more importantly, do you love him in spite of those things… or because of them?"

Steph pondered this for a long moment. "I guess… I kinda want to hit him and have sex with him at the same time. Is there any way to combine those two things?"

"You'd better ask Catwoman."

* * *

"Okay, this is new." Nightwing pulled at the bars on Tim's windows, testing their strength. "Shoddy workmanship. Now, I could recommend some awesome security companies."

"Thanks, but no." Tim got up from his bed and walked to the window, holding a hand up to the block out the purple of the setting sun. To him, it looked like eggplant. "Still dusk. You're out awfully early."

"Figured I'd get here before doing my rounds. Here." He passed a bag of fast food through the bars. "Don't know if they're feeding you in that little cupboard under the stairs, Harry Potter…"

Tim took the Happy Meal and began sorting through it. "'Man cannot live on bread alone.' Unless that bread is a sesame seed bun with spicy chicken between it."

"By the way," Dick said quickly. "I kept the toy. Hope you don't mind."

"Honestly, just because they're having a Transformers promotion campaign…"

"Hey, no one says anything about Babs' plushies!"

"Those are kinda cool… in an cute sort of way. Yours are just embarrassing."

Nightwing, standing on the windowsill, hung onto the bars with his hands as he leaned back. "This is the part where, if I were rescuing you, I'd leave you behind. Transformers are awesome, man. Nowadays you kids have crap like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, no wonder you're all shooting up schools and giving each other blowjobs. And speaking of mouth-to-genital contact…"

Tim looked up at Nightwing and dead-panned "Uhh, look, Dick, I like you a lot, just not in that way."

"You and Steph, retard. How're things going?"

Eating his fries, Tim sat back down on his bed. "I take one step forward, one step back."

"How does that work?"

"She punched me and I kinda deserved it."

Rubbing his jaw in sympathy, Dick said "Yeah, we always do. Then what happened?"

"Then she kissed me. A lot. I think we got to third base."

Dick nearly slipped off the windowsill. "She gave you head?"

"What? No. I guess it just _felt_ like third base."

"That's a special feeling."

"Could I ask you for a favor?"

"Anything."

"Well, I already have a bo staff, so… can I borrow a condom?"

After a moment, Dick managed to pull himself back up onto the ledge. "Does that imply you're going to give it back?"

"No, I just… need it."

Dick reached into a hidden pouch on his uniform and pulled out a latex condom. "Whatever you do, do not keep this _right next_ to your Batarangs. Embarrassing as all hell when you throw one of these things at Deathstroke... and it sends the wrong signal too." Tim reached for it and Dick pulled it out of his reach. "Why do you need it?"

"In case things… develop."

Nightwing leaned against the bars casually. "You know, things used to develop with me and Batgirl on cases."

"Dick, can I have one or not?"

"Sometimes things developed in the Batmobile."

"…"

Dick glanced at Tim.

"Please… _please_ tell me you washed it afterwards."

"Bruce has fifty million dollars worth of forensic equipment, never figured out what the smell was."

"I always wondered why he got rid of that Batmobile with the face on it."

"Besides the fact that it looked retarded?" Dick slid a condom between the bars. Tim shoved it in his pocket. "Okay, I get the condom, but you said you already had a bo staff? What's that for?"

"Same thing as the condom. Protection."

10. House Call

Barbara had just taken her glasses off to rub her sinuses as was her custom when the computer screen grew blurry in front of her when strong fingers slowly wrapped around her shoulders, massaging the tension away kicking and screaming.

"Dinah, you have until the count of five billion to stop doing that."

Drawing down to shoulder level, Dinah's face joined Barbara's reflection in the computer monitor. "Long day?"

"So long it proved that time is indeed relative." Barbara leaned back in her chair, relaxing into Dinah's soothing hands. "So, how's Steph?"

"Being pulled in eighteen different directions at once. Boy trouble, superhero trouble… thank God she hasn't asked me if I ever feel not-so-fresh."

"Where is she now?"

"Sleeping on the couch. Felt asleep on my shoulder. Cutest little thing. Had to tuck her in. Should I call her mother, tell her Steph's spending the night?"

"I'll do it. Voice scrambler works best for me."

"Admit it, you get a kick out of sounding like a fifteen-year-old girl."

Barbara let loose with a girlish "Teehee," then turned to look at Dinah. "Maybe we should get one of our own."

"Huh?"

"You know, a sidekick. Like someone from Young Justice. Youthful apprentice to help out, pass on our guidance too…"

Dinah shook her head. "A little blonde teenager running around the Clocktower? I don't think so."

"It was just a thought. But I guess I've got my hands full with you anyway…"

There was a ring at the door. Barbara checked the security cam to see Ollie, in full costume, was outside.

"Green Arrow's knocking at our door," Dinah said wryly.

"Is he stalking you? Because I can go all alpha female on his ass. "

There was another ring. "I'd better go see what he wants…"

Barbara craned her head back, reached out, and clapped Dinah's face. "Ignore him."

The doorbell rang yet again. "He'll wake Steph. What kind of superheroes would we be if we can't let one little girl get a good night's sleep?"

Barbara smiled. "Bleeding heart liberal."

"Civil rights-violating hawk."

"I'm going to bed."

"Join you in a moment."

As Barbara locked up her systems, Dinah walked out of the gear room, through the living room where Steph was sprawled out in front of TV. The light from the muted TV washed over her and Dinah, in passing, pulled up the blanket she had given Steph over the girl's eyes, shielding her from being woken by any bright television lights. The doorbell rang again on her way there.

"I'm a-comin', I'm a-comin'."

She opened the door and Ollie, beneath his mask and beard, offered her his cheesiest smile. "Hey pretty bird."

"Don't call me that."

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Only so I can throw you back out. C'mon."

Dinah and Ollie stepped inside. Ollie looked around the Clocktower, impressed at the obviously high-tech set-up.

"What do you want, Ollie?" Dinah asked, hands crocked at her hips.

"You." Nervously, Ollie began to fiddle with one of his arrows. It was actually kind of…

Dinah shook it off. "There's nothing between us. I've found someone else."

Ollie continued tinkering with the arrow, turning it over in his hands like it was a Rubik's Cube, refusing to meet Dinah's eyes. "I know, I know, but can't you remember the good times? I mean, surely you could give me another chance."

"Read my lips. I don't trust you. I don't love you. I'm not even sure I like you. You cheated on me, Ollie, you betrayed my trust and I can't forgive that."

Ollie ran his thumb over the arrowhead compulsively. "I cheated on you? What are you talking about?"

Dinah sighed and rolled her eyes. He probably thought, in his own skewed way, that this was romantic. "Yes, you cheated on me. We broke up. End of story."

"Dinah, you're a bright, intelligent, charming, beautiful young woman. I'd have to be _crazy_ to cheat on you."

With that, he jammed the arrow into her stomach.

Dinah looked at Ollie, making a series of disbelieving gasps somewhere deep in her throat as Ollie twisted the arrowhead. The blood didn't geyser out like something in a cheap slasher movie, it just kinda slowly trickled out like ketchup finally reaching the end of the bottle, like the old song went, anticipation, anticipation, is makin' me late, is keepin' me waitin'.

Ollie cupped her chin in his hands. Dinah noticed that they were callused all of a sudden, it didn't feel like when Ollie had _touched_ her, it felt like how a piece of meat must feel when a butcher was deciding how to cut it up. They made eye contact and his eyes were pitch-black, like a porcelain doll's.

"_Shhh,_" Ollie said, and somewhere between that and the last thing he'd said he'd lost his soul, at least his voice sounded that way, it sounded like some poor, rabid thing curled up to die in the cold. "_Shhh. You're going into shock. The pain will be gone soon. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I'm not here for you._"

Dinah fell to her knees and felt something warm and sticky on her knees and realized it was her blood, she was kneeling in a puddle of her own blood and it was spreading and Ollie was standing over her.

"_If you're not planning on any profound last words, you mind explaining the fishnets to me?_" Ollie asked.

Dinah crumpled forward and went to sleep and Barbara was waiting for her in bed and

* * *

Arkham stood over Steph, the only light coming from the TV, the screen reduced to snow by the being's presence. He walked around to the side of the couch, the static from the TV hitting his body and casting a long shadow over Steph.

"_Hello, pretty bird._"

11. Home Invasion

Jack Drake didn't mean to open the door. He had meant for the chain to hold just enough for him to get a good look through the slip of an opening. He would've used the spyhole, but it was late and he didn't want to put in his contacts all over again and…

Arkham smiled as he smashed the door in, knocking it off one of its hinges and shoving Jack down onto his back.

"_Hello. Can I speak to the superhero of the house?_"

Jack got to his feet, intent on defeating this intruder. He hadn't thrown a punch since the unfortunate incident with Bruce Wayne, but he was feeling even madder now, which he hadn't thought possible. His fist swung out like a battering ram…

And crashed against one upturned finger, where the punch terminated as surely as if it had run into a brick wall.

"_I don't know you,_" Arkham said, dark eyes seeming to express a hideous glimmer of a smile. "_You are, for all intents and purposes, exceedingly well-adjusted. I suspect this will save you a fortune on prescription drugs and alcoholic beverages in the future. If you live that long._"

The last thing Jack heard was "_Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm not here for you._"

* * *

Tim had woken up to many things in his brief life. Death traps, prisons, starships… but nothing terrified him as much as the man balanced on the foot of his bed, looming over him and seeming to fill the entire room with his malevolence.

"_You can get dressed, if you want to. I won't peek._"

Tim rolled out of bed and grabbed his bo staff from under his bed. Flicking it out to full length, he held Arkham at arm's length and hoped the second time was the charm.

"_Still waving sticks around, I see. Foolish boy. I'm trying to give you a gift._"

His knuckles were wrapped so tightly around the staff that they turned white. "What gift?"

"_Your heritage. The heritage of all humanity._"

And suddenly Arkham was right next to him and Tim felt himself being lifted into the air, unable to breathe, the thing's clammy hand around his neck…

"_Me._"

Then the screaming started.

In the blink of an eye Tim saw and seeing was his undoing and he closed his eyes to shut the things out but they weren't outside they were inside and it was a movie playing inside his head, projected onto the insides of his eyelids and he couldn't look away he couldn't look away _he couldn't look away he couldn't look away._

And sometime in between eternities Tm realized he was the one that was screaming.

The Birdarang has a de-cel line attached to it. It looped around Arkham's neck like a noose and Arkham had just enough time to turn his head to see Nightwing standing on the other side of the barred windows before Dick kicked off the windowsill, yanking Arkham along for the ride. Arkham's body hit the window, the three iron bars cutting his body into three pieces with a slurping sound like a boot stepping into wet sound. Nightwing watched with grim satisfaction as the creature hit the ground and splattered like a vacuum bag exploding, scattered to the winds.

He turned his attention back to the window. Inside, Tim was on his side, barely visible from Dick's vantage point. Nightwing looked to the bars on the window and decided on the simplest solution. The bars may have been iron, but the windowsill wasn't. He stomped on it until it broke, plaster and wood crumbling away.

Slipping under the bars, Nightwing saw that Tim had rolled onto his back, eyes rolled back in his head, front teeth biting down on his lower lip so hard that blood was trickling down his chin, body shaking uncontrollably. Kneeling down, Nightwing grabbed Tim by the shoulders and held him as still as possible, trying to snap him out of whatever it was Arkham had done to him.

"Wake up, Tim!" he screamed as he slapped Tim. "Wake up!

"Wake up!"


	4. Chapter 4

12. Headcase

_Zippers held the world together at seams that were once invisible but now laid bare like a corpse being given an autopsy, the entire cave was flowing out of his feet like skin being sloughed off, the whole world was turning and the axis rested on his eyes. Tim could feel the floor without touching it, he could feel the cotton of his shirt after touching it, hell, his skin became cotton._

_He fell through the floor and came out through the ceiling and back through the floor and again and again he did this and each world he fell through was stacked on top of the other and there was a world where his father had a boomerang in his heart and a world where his girlfriend had a power drill in her stomach and his friends were dead, he was dead, everyone was dead dead dead and nothing would ever be alive again, nothing could grow anymore, heaven was a barren wasteland and hell was the weeds springing up to fill it._

_And beyond the weeds as tall as cornstalks was a macrocosm, the larger world that had been there all along but Tim hadn't seen it because he'd been asleep. The machine was spinning and the whole of his dimension was just a cell in this giant rolodex. Everything he had ever loved or hated or feared in the world, everything he had worked for or against never was, it never mattered, it was merely a delusion created to show him how fragile life could be. No wonder God had kept it a secret since humanity's birth. It was as sweet as honey on the lips but made his gut rot until it burst and no one could save him now, not his father or Steph or Dick or Bruce or Kon or Bart or himself…_

When Tim woke up, his heart was pounding in his ear, his tongue felt three sizes too big for his mouth, and his lips were cracked and parched.

"Wha… where am I?"

The atmosphere was dark, tribal drumbeats drowning out his heart. The only illumination came from flickering torches. Tim looked around. He was bound to a pole, hands behind his back, stripped naked. Beside him, his father sat in a business suit, jacket off, tie loose. Jack's face was beaded with sweat, his eyes clouded.

"Dad? Dad, say something. What are we doing here?"

"What are we doing here?" Jack turned to face him. "Tim… we're home."

Tim's brow furrowed with confusion. "What are you talking about? What is this place?"

"Your birthplace."

That's when Tim's mother was dragged out. His real mother.

"Mom!" Tim's relief was palpable. Surely, surely his mother would make it all better, his mother meant the nightmare was over. Then he got a good look at her.

Janet was dressed in business attire like Jack, her clothes tattered and torn, her blouse ripped open to reveal a bra with one shoulder strap slashed off. The men were manhandling her, leering at her, chanting something in a dark tongue. Their skin was pitch black, all of their bodies were black, even their eyes and teeth. Tim could make out the blood red of their lips and gums standing out in the dim light.

"Hey! Hey! Let her go!" Tim strained at his bonds. His hands were behind his back and he couldn't get any leverage.

Tim knew what happened next. He had seen it in his nightmares countless times.

The Obeah Man's knife was sharp and glimmered like a diamond in the dark.

"Dad, you've got to untie me! Dad! You've got to untie me, I can stop this!"

"Can't untie you…" Jack moaned. "You'll get hurt. Can't lose you too. Can't let you join your mother. Can't let her have you."

The knife cut into Janet's forehead and the blood streamed down her brow, turning her face into a scarlet mask.

"Dad, do something! Dad!"

"I can't, son…" Jack reached down and pulled up his pant legs. His feet were desiccated, skin sticking to bone. "They crippled me."

The knife traced over Janet's lips, the blood staining her teeth red.

"Hey, hey!" Tim called out to the Obeah Man. "Look at me, look at me! Let's talk! C'mon, five minutes! Five minutes. Let's just talk for five minutes. Can I have five minutes? The gods can wait five minutes, right?"

Jack's cheeks were hollowing out, his face becoming cadaverous as if being ravaged by cancer. "Where were you, Tim? With Wayne? I knew you never wanted me as a father, but why did your mother deserve to die?"

"That's not true!" Tim shouted at his father and turned back to the Obeah Man, who's attention he seemed to have caught. "C'mon, let's talk. What do you want? You've got to want something, right? I can get it for you. Whatever it is, I can get it for you. Just… let my parents go and let's do business, alright? C'mon. You don't need to hurt her. We can figure this thing out. C'mon, let's work together on this, alright? Put our heads together, you and me, we can think of a way out of this without anyone having to get hurt."

"Why didn't Wayne stop this?" Jack wondered aloofly, as if not noticing the struggle unfolding before him.

Tim ignored him. "You want money? I can get you money. You want power? I can get you power. Just tell me what you want? It's all about you, you have all the power. But see, a powerful man doesn't need to prove he's powerful. Killing someone, that's the act of a weakling. You don't have to do this. You have all the power, what have you got to prove? C'mon, put down the knife. Put down the knife."

"He could've done something. He saved me. Maybe it was long-term planning. Dick was motivated by the loss of his parents, just like Wayne, and they both turned out okay. But Jason, Jason didn't have that edge and looked out he ended up. If you were going to be Robin, you needed that edge."

"Just put down the knife and we'll work something out. Just put it down. You don't need it. You don't want to hurt anyone. We can still salvage this. You want people to respect your cause, they won't do that if you're a killer. You've shown how powerful you are, now show the world you can be merciful."

"He couldn't deny you a chance at happiness, but he couldn't let you become Robin without understanding his pain. You thought you chose this? He forced you into it. First he let you discover who he was, then he molded you, brainwashed you. Turned you into an instrument of his vengeance. You're not a man, you're a boy wonder, you're his pawn."

"Please… don't kill her… please… please…"

The knife fell and there was so.

Much.

Blood.

* * *

The leather restraints kept Tim from moving as the scanner ran over him. It was built from Rann and Kryptonian technology, unable to be duplicated by Earth science. Batman and Nightwing watched as green light washed over the boy.

"His brain chemistry has been fundamentally and irrevocably altered," Batman pronounced. "Increased heart rate, adrenaline, pulse… he's locked in some sort of fugue state, like an acid trip. But his body can't sustain this 'high' forever. He will go into cardiac arrest and he will die. And there's nothing we can do about it."

"Maybe it's better if he doesn't wake up. I know I'd want to sleep rather than find out what happened to Steph if she had been my…" Dick gritted his teeth and shook his head. "There must be something! Anti-psychotic meds…"

"Introducing a prescription drug to his body could kill him even faster! To help him, we'd have to reset his brain somehow, and that's impossible without killing him." Batman paused, considering. "So that's just what we'll do."

"What?"

"We'll kill him and bring him back."

Batman strode quickly to the chemical laboratory, typing formulas into the computer and waiting for them to be brought to him. "Do you have any idea how risky that is? Stopping his heart could…"

"That won't be necessary. All we need to bring about is brain death, a complete cessation of neural activity. That can be accomplished in deep anesthesia."

"Why Tim and Steph? Why not you or me or Huntress?" Nightwing asked in a small voice as he set up an IV line.

"I don't know. There's no reason behind it. No connection between them and his previous victims. No connection between any of his victims. It's just… senseless."

Nightwing looked at Tim and very quickly realized he couldn't bear to watch him die. "It could be he's going after Robins. I'll try and find Red Hood, warn him…"

Batman looked up. "If he is going after Robins, you're a target. Be careful."

"Believe me, I'm the last person this guy wants to find."

13. Le Petit Morte

_The way was shut and Tim couldn't get through. The seams of the world clashed like teeth grinding together, pulling up and down and threatening to make the world come undone._

"Still with us, kiddo?" Black Mask asked, slapping Tim to full wakefulness.

Tim blinked the weariness out of his eyes. His arms were still bound behind his back and he felt worse than before. Every inch of his skin ached. "Who… who are you? What is this?"

Black Mask spread his arms wide. "You conked out on us, boy wonder. Bought your little girlfriend a brief respite, but anticipation is overrated. So let's get to work."

The Black Mask's scalpel was sharp and glimmered like a diamond in the dark.

Tim shook his head. "This isn't real. None of this is real."

"Just keep telling yourself that. And you might wanna pass the message along to her." Black Mask's footsteps stopped next to a table. Spoiler was tied down on it, her mask sliced open.

"Tim, help me! Don't let him get me!"

"Steph! Steph!"

Black Mask pinched Stephanie's cheek. "Awww, ain't she a sweetheart?" He pulled back her hood and peeled off her mask, revealing a shock of blonde hair. Setting the scalpel down by her cheek, he picked up a pair of scissors. "The hair's a little much though. You think she'd look better as a brunette?"

He snipped off a lock of hair, which fluttered to the ground.

"She doesn't have anything to do with this!" Tim yelled. "Let her go! Take me instead!"

"Oh, Timmy. I thought none of this was real! Which means I can't kill you, right? So no, I think I'll stay with her."

A larger chunk of hair hit the floor.

"Look, don't do anything you'll regret! Batman will come looking for us!"

"Oh dear! Not Batman! Anything but _Batman_." Black Mask's smile was, appropriately enough, a rictus. "None of this is real, remember? Batman's a myth, an urban legend."

Steph's earlobe fell to the ground. Steph's screams were shrill and piercing.

"You're dead, you son of a bitch! You hear me! You're a fucking dead man! I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

The bonds were so damn strong, they must have been chains or something…

Steph whimpered as Black Mask walked back over to Tim. "You don't want me to hurt her? You want me to stop?"

Tim nodded. "Yes. I'll do anything."

"Well, since you asked so nicely…" Black Mask picked up a gun. "I'm going to give you a choice. I keep her alive and in… exquisite agony… or you tell me to kill her."

Tim absorbed the information, disbelieving. He shook his head slowly, than with rising vigor. "No, no. I won't do it!"

Black Mask shoved the gun into his waistband and picked up the scalpel, driving it into Steph's shoulder and jamming it back and forth. Steph screamed until she was hoarse. "It's your choice, Tim! You can end this any time you want! All you have to do is let her die."

Tim tasted the salt of his tears leaking down his face. "Please… you can't ask me to…"

"Stop crying, you sniveling little robin! You can save her! But you have to make a decision! Let the pain continue or tell me to end it! Your choice!"

Steph looked at Tim through an eye that was nearly swollen shut. "Please, Tim. Please, don't let him hurt me anymore…"

"I can't!" Tim sobbed. "I can't! I can't! I can't!"

"Alright then, alright then, that's fine!" Black Mask picked up a power drill. "That's just fine by me! I'll keep her alive for months, Tim! And you'll watch every second of it! I'll make you watch her die bit by bit! You little shit, it's because of you! You're letting this happen to her!"

The power drill's whine was shrill and deadly. Black Mask held the tip so close to her eye that if she blinked she could feel it. "I'm gonna leave her one of her eyes, Tim! Just one! And every night I'm gonna make her look in a mirror and see what you've done to her."

He revved the drill again and Steph shut her eyes tight…

"Alright!"

Black Mask turned, pulling the drill away. "What?"

Tim couldn't stop the tears running down his cheeks, couldn't keep the terror out of his voice, couldn't keep strong, even for Steph. "Do it. Just… don't hurt her anymore."

The gun glimmered like a diamond in the dark. Black Mask slowly ran the barrel through Steph's hair. "I want you to say it. I want you to beg for me to kill her."

The words tasted like sweat and blood. "Please. Please kill her."

The explosion was deafening.

* * *

Batman watched as Tim's EKG lowered and lowered.

"Fight it, Tim," he said under his breath. "You can beat this."

* * *

Tim silently wept. He wept until he had no more tears to shed and he kept weeping anyway. And then he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards them. He looked up to see Steph. Her costumes clinging to her like a gown, much too large on her skeletal form. Through the holes in it he could see broken bones and dry blood. Her walk was lopsided, broken, and every step made a horrid grinding noise that Tim couldn't bear to try to figure out.

"How could you let me die, Tim?"

Tim shook his head. "Please… don't do this… stop this… please…"

She knelt down beside him. The mask was tight around the contours of her face, like pantyhose. He could see her face through it, the head wound in vivid detail, blood-soaked hair poking out through holes in the mask.

"You love me, don't you? I want you, Tim. I want you inside me." Her hand slipped down between her legs. She moaned and it came up with blood. "I want you so bad, Tim. Make me a woman, Tim. Make me a Robin."

Then her hands were cold against his groin, so cold it burned and he felt her fingers wrapping around his cock and moving up and down in short gulps.

"Please, don't…" Tim begged. "Don't do this, please, I don't want this, I don't…"

"Kiss me, Tim. I need you so bad. I need your warmth. God, I love you so much…"

She pulled up her mask and her mouth lolled open and her head moved down to encompass him.

"You wouldn't do this," Tim insisted. "This isn't you. You're not real." The only warmth in her was the blood and he could feel that on her lips. "None of this is real. This is a lie! Steph's not in here! She's out there! She's _out there!"_

_And the zippers ripped clean, the seams burst, and Tim didn't care, he maintained his center. This was a lie, whatever it showed him was a lie, and everything he loved was out there, waiting for him to come back, Steph was waiting for him, everything was going to be just great again as long as he just concentrated, concentrated, __**concentrated**_

_The weeds sprung up again but this time Tim was ready. He stayed centered as they ran through the wasteland and over him and became him and still he did not lose his focus. The machine howled and spun and told him he was meaningless, that he was nothing, less than nothing, a miniscule speck on a miniscule speck on a miniscule speck and still Tim remained focused. The machine promised him secrets, the machine promised him answers, the machine promised him his mother and riches and power and love and Tim ignored it._

Steph was waiting for him.

* * *

Tim's eyes dilated. Above him, the ceiling was moving, but it was just the bats.

He sat up and Alfred was quick to undo the restraints on his wrists. Catching his breath, feeling his heart crawl out of his throat and back down into his chest, he rubbed his wrists where the skin was chafed raw. Tim stared at his fingers flexing as the others gathered around him.

"Where's Steph?"


	5. Chapter 5

14. Walking Wounded

"Wayne, where the hell is my son!?"

Alfred held the phone a considerate distance from Bruce's ear as the Batman changed out of his armor and into appropriate street clothes. "He's here. Safe. We've cured him."

"Cured him? What the hell was wrong with him? What've you done?"

Bruce sighed. "He was in a state of hallucinatory psychosis brought about by alteration of his brain chemistry by unknown means. But I killed him and he's all better now. Good day."

Alfred hung up the phone as Bruce adjusted his tie. "That was rather cruel, sir."

"We don't have time for nice."

* * *

They probably looked ludicrous. Bruce driving, Egyptian silk shirt and four hundred dollar pants even at five in the morning. Tim next to him, dressed in some of Dick's old clothes from back when he was the first Robin. In this case, a tuxedo, stretched to accommodate Tim's leaner, taller frame. Dick's shoes were too big for Tim, so Drake was wearing slippers.

Yes, it would probably look ludicrous if Tim wasn't huddled up in the passenger seat, arms drawn tight around his knees, trying his very best not to cry, Bruce's jaw set in mute determination, the silence tense and palpable around and between them.

* * *

The greatest comfort Tim took was in the steady resounding footfalls of Bruce's shoes on the hospital floor. He filled out all the forms, greased all the wheels, and never said a word until they reached the room.

"She's in there," Bruce said simply, and Tim nodded.

Bruce took a seat, arms resting on his legs, hands steepled together. Breathing deeply through his nose, Tim entered the room. There was no sound except for a coiled beeping, low and constant, and the dull noise of raspy breathing.

"Tim?"

Tim closed the door behind him and took a step forward, nodding. "It's me."

"How's… Dinah?"

"She's in intensive care. It's touch and go, but they think she'll be okay."

"That's good."

The voice was a dry croak from the shadows of the bed. The covers were pulled up high, Steph facing away from him, blackened hair peeking out from between her bandages.

Tim's feet padded across the floor toward her. "You want to talk about it?"

"No. And don't come any closer. I don't want you to see me like this."

Tim paused there, about six feet from the bed. He felt slightly stupid, his hands shoved in his pocket, not sure what to do. Was this how Dick felt after Barbara was paralyzed?

"Oh, Steph… What did he do to you?"

"Nothing that won't heal."

"Do you want me to open a window or something, get you some water?"

"Water would be nice."

Seeing a cup at the bedside, Tim picked it up. In doing so, he got close enough to Steph to briefly touch her on the shoulder, giving her a supportive squeeze. His biggest hope was that it didn't cause her any pain, but one hand reached up and stroked his fingers before he withdrew.

"I'll be right back."

"I'm not going anywhere," Steph said with a hint of amusement in her voice.

As Tim strode out of the hospital room to refill the cup at a water fountain, Bruce fell into lockstep with him. "How is she?"

"About as well as you'd expect for a woman with her face half-burnt off."

"I'm having the best reconstructive surgeons from around the country being flown in. They're very optimistic. Barbara fought him off before he could do any lasting damage. People won't stare when she walks down the street, people won't be able to tell. There won't be any scars."

Tim froze, ignoring the water as it overflowed from the cup and ran over his hand. "There already are."

It wasn't until he got back to the hospital room that he saw Cass lingering in the shadows, of which there were many. He tried to figure out if she'd entered while he was gone or been there all along and gave up on it. She stepped in front of Tim and said, in her own quiet way, "Have to go. You watch her now. Your responsibility."

Tim didn't quite like the gist of that responsibility line, but he ignored it as Cass headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Hit something," was the answer.

Tim suddenly felt very sorry for the next criminal Batgirl came across.

"Here," Tim said as he handed the glass to Steph. She was wearing some sort of device on her forefinger to measure her pulse or something like that. She drank the water slowly and when she handed the glass back to Tim there was blood on the rim of it.

He set the glass down and handed her a candy bar. "This was the most expensive thing in the vending machine. Hope you like it. Do you need me to open it for you or…"

"It's one half of my face that I'm lacking, Tim, not opposable thumbs."

"Right. Sorry."

Steph tried to tear it open, but the packaging was resistant. Tim pretended not to notice as she wrenched it this way and that, finally giving up. "Is this what my life is going to be like now? People pitying me, doing things for me? He can't do that! He can't make me that way! He can't take this from me!"

Tim gently repositioned her hands along the candy bar's flap. When she moved her hands, it tore open with ease. "You'll get better. It's going to be okay. You'll get better."

The candy bar forgotten, Steph's eyes settled on Tim. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Something's wrong. Something's happened. What is it?"

Tim sat down on the bed next to Steph. "It's nothing. He… he went after me too. Did something to my head. Put images inside of me, thoughts, feelings… they weren't mine. But I'm okay now."

They sat in silence for a long time.

"It was you."

Steph looked up sharply. Tim had spoken, not moving a muscle except his mouth.

"I saw you… hurting me, and I knew you would never do that. That's how I knew it was a lie. That's how I broke free."

Reaching out, Steph slowly turned his head to face her. "Don't fall in love with me now, boy wonder. I'm not worth the trouble." She sat up, her head moving into the light. The fire had burnt away most of her hair and half of her face was covered with bandages. Blisters extended out from under the bandages, tainting her reddened skin. Her one good eye was heavy-lidded and bloodshot.

"I never should have been Robin. We both know that. Just… give him one for me."

Tim moved closer, feeling the contrast between her coarse bandages and smooth skin with his hand. Steph shuddered a little at the contact and looked down.

"We'll take him together… Robin." He kissed her on the forehead. "You're still as beautiful as the day I met you."

"The day you met me I was wearing a mask."

"Minor technicality." Tim smiled. "Your face wasn't what I fell in love with."

"My boobs then?"

"Close." Tim tapped her heart. "You are… simply amazing. You can go through these horrible things and still make jokes. You give me so much strength, you can't even realize it. If there's one good thing to come out of all of this, then it's this. In escaping from Arkham's nightmare world, I realized I had the courage to tell you that I love you. I've loved you so damn much that it hurt to keep it inside. And I'm going to keep on loving you for as long as you'll have me."

Steph smiled and shook her head. "All this time I try to get you to express your true feelings and it turns out you're a complete cheeseball…"

"Shut up and kiss me."

So she did.

For the record, it was worth waiting for.

* * *

"Mr. Wayne."

Bruce looked up at the orderly. "Yes?"

The orderly clutched his clipboard nervously. "There's a situation with the patient."

"Is Stephanie alright?"

"You'd better see for yourself."

With the orderly ushering him in, Bruce stepped into the hospital room. Tim was curled up on the bed, atop the sheets and next to Steph, one arm rolling over her, his hand covered by both of hers. Both were sound asleep.

Bruce stared at them as the orderly spoke up. "Sir, visiting hours are over. He'll have to leave."

Bruce took off his coat and gently lay it over Tim, who snuggled into its warmth for a moment before returning to motionlessness. "Ten million dollars," he said, writing a check. "Do whatever you want with it. But the boy stays where he is."

"What boy?" the orderly asked innocently before hurrying off.

Bruce followed him, pausing a moment at the doorway to look back at them. "Good night, sweet prince," he whispered before closing the door behind him.

* * *

"Tim?"

Tim's eyes blinked open, his body coming to full wakefulness immediately like a startled animal. Sunlight was streaming in through the window and his loose clothing had grown no more comfortable over the night, although someone had added a man's long coat to the ensemble. Standing up, he turned to face the new arrival.

"Dad?"

They rushed into each other's arms, Tim wanting to bury himself in his father's embrace and not emerge for a long time. A purple bruise and good-sized lump had developed over Jack's face, evidence of his run-in with Arkham. Jack slipped his hand under Tim's shirt and rubbed his back, comforting him as he had when Tim was just a boy, and Tim finally felt a sense of standing down, of not waiting for the hammer to fall for the first time in a long while.

"I've been so worried," Jack sobbed into Tim's ear. "I called all the hospitals, when I heard you were here I thought the worst. Oh, my boy, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, dad. I'm okay."

They broke and Tim noticed Steph looking at him. Jack noticed her too.

"Tim, who's this?"

Tim looked between Jack and Steph. "She's my… well, it's kinda complicated at the moment."

"I'm his girlfriend, Stephanie Brown," Steph announced, extending her hand to Jack, who shook it firmly.

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Jack said before turning to Tim. "Tim, we need to talk. After last night, I think it's time we hash out the… the you know…"

"Dad, she knows about Robin. Actually, right now? She is Robin."

Jack looked at the two of them suspiciously. "She's Robin? Then what have you two been doing together?"

Both shook their heads frantically. "Mr. Drake, it's not like that." "Dad, I've been helping her…"

"Alright, alright!" Jack called, placating them with his hands. "I get it. I was young once too, ya know. Young lady, do you mind if my son and I talk in private?"

"Go ahead."

Jack and Tim walked out, leaving Steph alone. Steph yawned and stretched and made an little girlish sound of all-is-right-with-the-world-except-for-my-face and when she opened her eyes she saw that a bouquet of flowers had appeared on the bedstand beside her.

Picking it up, she saw there was a card.

**Steph.**

**Get better.**

**Cass.**

Steph smiled and poured what was left of her water into the pot.

* * *

The cafeteria sold the Drake men flat-looking slices of pizza, which Tim stood in line for while Jack got on the phone and told Dana that everything was okay. Sitting down, Tim ravenously devoured his slice, chasing it with a carton of milk.

"You're hungry," Jack commented harmlessly.

"Missed breakfast."

"Tim, let's get down to brass tacks." Jack folded his hands atop the table and Tim's body language shrunk in on itself, ready for a talking-to. "I don't like the thought of you risking your life night after night. I don't like the thought of you spending time with someone like Bruce Wayne."

"Dad, he's a good man…"

"Let me finish!" Jack insisted. "I don't like a lot about this… life you've chosen. But what I like even less is the thought of people like this 'Arkham' hurting people because you can't do your job. And, since I apparently can't stop you anyway, I want you to have my blessing."

Tim's face went through a contorted sequence of emotions. "Dad, I… I don't know what to say."

Jack smiled and put out his hand. "Say you'll make me proud."

Tim shook it. "I'll make you proud, sir."

"That's my boy."


	6. Chapter 6

_I get a bad rap. An unfair one, I think._

_People get told I'm crazy, as if crazy is some black and white thing you can just __**define**__ instead of a nebulous, intangible ball of string you need someone like me to untangle… anyway, people get told I'm crazy and they think Looney Tunes._

_That's just not true. I can be as calm, as rational, as patient as the next guy… provided the next guy can become sexually aroused by depictions of ax murder._

_So, whatever my faults are, at least give me some credit. I can wait just as long as any sane man. Longer. Sanity has to strive to survive. Madness is the natural state to which all mankind can gleefully descend. It is, in the end, the only true survival mechanism in existence._

15. Stargazing

Tim pulled Cass away before she could do any more damage. "That's enough!" he yelled, heedless of the fact that she could take him apart in a few seconds.

"It's okay, Tim," Steph said, getting up and wincing as she touched the bruise Cass had left on her. "She's just doing her job. Training us to work as a unit."

"You'll rip your stitches," Tim insisted.

The scar on the right side of Steph's face, extending from temple to chin, was the actual point where the red-hot blade had been in direct contact with skin. It was all that was left of the burn scars after months of surgical repair work. The doctors had said that one more surgery would be required to remove it completely, but for now they were still waiting for the scar tissue to clear or form or some such thing. Tim figured Steph was determined to get rid of Arkham before she got rid of the scar.

Steph pushed a lock of sweat-dampened hair out of her eyes. "Alfie can patch me up. C'mon, let's do this. One more."

Tim let go of Cass. "You don't have to be so rough on her."

Cass brought up her escrima sticks. "I care too much not to," she said, fixing Tim with a stare he could've sworn was hostile.

Robin and Batgirl sparred with each other and Tim tried his best not to worry.

Tomorrow, he and Steph would perform their "final exam."

Trying to take down Cass together.

* * *

The air of the satellite Batcave was damp and humid, the heat from the pounding summer sun running down into the cavern like rainwater. They were in the training area, the largest area of the cave save for the garage which bordered on the abandoned subway tunnel used as an entrance. In contrast to the Batcave under Wayne Manor, Cass' cave was tight and claustrophobic. In places you had to crouch down to get where you were going.

"This is going to hurt," Tim warned.

"Just get it over with," Steph replied.

Working as efficiently as Alfred had taught him, Tim quickly tightened one of the loosened stitches. Steph winced and then sighed in relief when he finished. Drake wiped his bloodied fingers off on his shirt.

"Your mother," Steph said, lying back on top of the holographic projector she had been sitting on, "must hate that shirt. You always bring it home with sweat, blood, bat guano…"

"If it offends you so much, I could get rid of it…"

Steph sat up to fix Tim with a stare. "Make it so."

Peeling off his shirt, Tim lay down next to Steph. The metal of the projector made a little gasp of protest settling in under the new weight, but held firm. They sat silently for a minute, staring up at the stalactites.

"Seems this has been our life for as long as I can remember," Steph mused. "The fear, the waiting, the endless preparation. Like we've got the Sword of Damascus hanging over our head."

"Damocles," Tim gently corrected.

"I just wish we could have one night where we didn't have to worry about who's going to be Robin or whether the surgery will work or if we're going to die or a million other things. Just… one… night…" She rolled over to face Tim.

"I made something for you."

Tim rolled to the side and began punching commands into the switchboard on the side of the projector.

"Tim…?"

"Just lie back down and wait a minute… okay, there!"

The projector buzzed to life and suddenly a glittering starscape appeared above them. Tim lay back down next to Steph as she gazed in wonder at the simulated night sky.

"I've… I've never seen it like this before. Without the clouds or the… the pollution…" Steph said, wonderment choking her voice.

"As a kid, I always loved the idea that wherever you went, the same stars were above you. No matter how far apart friends or family were, the night sky was still the same. No matter what happens, we'll still have the stars."

"Tim?"

"Yeah?"

Steph rolled over and rested her head on Tim's chest. "Would it really be so bad if we made love? Tonight, right now, under the stars… or as close to it as we can get in Gotham? I know the scar is distracting."

"It's not about the scar, Steph," Tim said, pulling off Steph's wig. She'd grown out her natural hair into a short pageboy do in the last few months and he ran his fingers through it affectionately. "It's about the fact that we don't need to. We're still going to be here after we bring Arkham in."

"But Tim, what if we…"

"Neither of us. Are going. To die. Now, do you trust me?"

Steph kissed his chest. "I trust you. Do me a favor, though."

"Anything."

"Don't have any nightmares tonight."

It was a remarkably easy request to accommodate, considering Tim never had any nightmares when he was in Steph's arms. Or wouldn't have, if Cass hadn't chosen that moment to step out of the elevator. Tim gave her a hairy eyeball as she walked to the computer console, Steph abstaining with an amused expression.

"Don't mind me," Cass said as she sat down.

The computer turned on and she pressed an icon on the touch screen. "The quick brown fox ran after the lazy dog," a computerized voice enunciated, which bore a remarkable resemblance to Oracle's voice. Apparently, Tim mused, Barbara had developed a Majel Roddenberry complex.

"Ummm… you mind… giving us a little privacy?" Tim asked as Steph snickered endlessly.

"It is my cave," Cass pointed out, typing in a series of commands on the keyboard. The computer read her writing.

"Da quik brwn fox ranne after da laze dawg."

Cass scowled.

"Tim, give her some help," Steph said.

"What? Why me?"

"It is her cave."

"Ugh."

Tim got up and Steph jumped on his back, riding piggyback on him as he went to help Cass with her literary lessons.

* * *

There should be a law, Tim thought, about having to hold down your girlfriend's leg while she stretched and then not being able to have sex with her.

"So," Steph asked, enjoying Tim's consternation about watching the muscles of her thighs work under the skin, "have you told your dad that, in a very short amount of time, you're going to be going about fighting a psychotic killer?"

"Have you told your mother?"

"…touché."

Steph stretched forward to touch the toes of the foot Tim was holding, giving him a look down her shirt.

"Limber," Tim said.

"I can't believe I never thought of doing this back when I was trying to snag you."

"Back when?"

"Smartass."

That's when they noticed Cass standing before them. She was stripped to her exercise clothes, a tight gi that still had bloodstains on it from their last exercise. Tim was stripped to the waist and Steph wore her Robin suit, albeit unbuttoned and with most of the armor padding taken off for ease of movement.

Cass tossed them two sets of escrima sticks. Tim caught them and handed one pair to Steph, who whirled them in her hands like a drummer in a rock band.

"Ready?" Cass asked.

"No," Steph said.

"She's kidding. Let's go!"

It was a train wreck.

Tim waded in, about to try to get at Cass' weaknesses and wear her down like a boxer in a prizefight, when Steph charged in, sticks swinging. Cass fended her off with the escrima stick in one hand while blocking Tim's attacks with the one in the other. In short order, Cass had tricked Tim into knocking Steph down with an accidental blow to the head and retaliated with a series of shots to Tim's gut, dropping him to the floor, breathless.

"I think," Tim said, the side of his face mashed against the exercise mat, "that she goes easier on you."

Steph stared at Tim. "I'd really like, sometime, for you to explain your concept of 'easier'. I do not think it approaches our Earth definition of the word."

16. Ain't We A Pair?

Tim sat down on an empty crate and breathed in, chest hitching up and down like he was undergoing an asthma attack. Steph laid down on her back and ignored the swelling where Tim hit her.

"Sorry about that," Tim said, and worried about the part of him that _wasn't_.

"S'okay." She stood up, hovering in the median distance of his eyesight like a wraith. "We keep getting in each other's way. Maybe it's not supposed to be like this. Maybe it just isn't meant to work out…"

"Things aren't meant to be anything but what they are." Tim stood up too, a kind of burning in his eyes that Steph couldn't tell and neither could he. "If they don't work out, it's because we don't make them work out. Come here." Steph did, slowly, and Tim put his arms around her. "I need this. Don't you?"

Steph buried her face in his chest and shook her head. "I used to think so, but I don't." She pulled away, leaving tearstains on his torso. "But I want this."

"Then maybe it's time we stop trying to control each other. My style's more precise, more tactical, more planned, more finesse. Yours is more street, more improvisational, more… angry."

"I've got more to be angry about."

"So instead of trying to fit into one style, why don't we play to our strengths?"

Steph nodded. "We stick to what we each do best."

* * *

Tim came in, escrima sticks whirling like a hurricane. Cass switched both her sticks to one hand, doubling the strength, and blocked his attacks, one hand furiously windmilling as he mercilessly advanced on her. Cass had just managed to dispatch him with a knife-hand to the throat when Steph moved in, escrima sticks swinging like two baseball bats, one high, one low. Cass blocked the first one, aimed at her head, but the second one slipped through and slammed her in the ribs, causing her to slide backwards on her heels.

That's when Tim got an idea. He threw both of his sticks to Steph, who grabbed them, duplicating Cass' doubling up, and went wild. Cass switched to akimbo sticks, but the first swing she blocked nearly knocked the club out of her hand. Each blow was packed with rage and energy, battering away at her defenses like a storm against the shore.

When Tim stepped in with a hurricane kick that sent Cass to the ground, it was all over. Steph tossed one handful of escrima sticks over her shoulder to Tim, who twisted them in his hands like Keith Moon.

Cass held out her hand and Steph helped her up.

"We're done. There is nothing more you can learn."

Tim and Steph watched her leave. "I'm gonna take that as a compliment."

17. Reasons

It hurt inside his head.

Okay, so it could be a headache, but it isn't.

One moment Tim would be looking at Steph and thinking about how lovely her smile is, the next he would be thinking about how she would look if a train ran over her and it wasn't fair, the thoughts weren't _his_…

If he could kill something. Just once. Then it would be better. Then the voices would go away… or at least he would be able to hear them clearly.

Well, if he had to kill someone to get the voices out of his head, it might as well be Arkham.

* * *

Tim picked at his food. Steamed broccoli and pork chops. Even death row inmates got better last meals. His mother and father were talking about _work_ and he felt like yelling at them or kicking something over.

God, he missed Steph.

"Tim, are you alright? You look a little depressed," Dana said.

Tim faked a smile. He's gotten good at it. "It's nothing.

* * *

Arkham had to die because he laughed.

While he cut into Stephanie's cheek with that knife so hot it set her _face_ on fire, he'd laughed. And he would've cut lower if Barbara hadn't stopped him.

No one got to do that to Stephanie Brown the Girl Wonder. No one.

* * *

Mrs. Brown knocked on the door to her daughter's room. It used to have all manner of wacky "keep out" type signs, but those seemed to have disappeared in the last few months.

"Come in!" Stephanie called from inside.

Crystal Brown opened the door and saw Steph sitting on her bed, headphones on, listening to her old Walkman.

"Steph, you didn't come down for dinner."

"Wasn't hungry."

"So… you've been up here all this time? Listening to your CDs?"

Steph smiled. "It just occurred to me that I really like this music and I haven't had time to listen to it in a while." She held up a CD jewel case, **Chopin: The Piano Works**. "You know, I wanted to be a concert pianist before I got… sidetracked."

"I remember, dear."

Steph stood up and pulled a small envelope from her back pocket, looking like she was trying very hard not to cry. "You know, if something… bad, ever happened to me… I'd like you to give this to my baby… God, I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl…"

Crystal hugged her. "I promise. This is about the riot, isn't it? You have to go help…"

"What riot?"

"It's all over the news. The inmates in Arkham are rioting, trying to break loose. It's like they've gone crazy all at once…"

18. Welcome Home

The old Arkham Asylum still clung to life, barely. The massive iron gates were rusted, the windows were boarded up, but unlike all the other derelict buildings nearby, it was untouched by graffiti.

Tim and Steph, dressed in their Robin costumes, stood outside the gates, Tim carrying a duffel bag full of explosives.

"He's out in the city. Stirring up his old friends. If we don't shut him down at the source…"

"He knows we're coming to kill him," Steph said. "He's been waiting for us all this time and now he's upping the stakes. Bastard."

"We get inside, you watch my back while I plant the explosives. Like Anita said, as soon as the place burns down, Arkham goes bye-bye."

"_You'll_ plant the explosives?"

"I've received training in demolitions."

"Why didn't I get to learn how to blow things up?" Steph got a look from Tim. "Oh, right." She paused. "We are way too young for this, aren't we?"

"No. We aren't."

* * *

Tim clutched the bag to his chest tightly as they entered. There was a thin layer of dust over everything and debris from the ancient explosion was scattered everywhere. Passing under a reception sign that had halfway collapsed, they entered the reception area. Behind security fencing, the guard's station had been stripped of all electronics. It smelled slightly of ammonia and there was a bloodstain on the ceiling.

"We need to set these in the foundation or people could get hurt in the blast," Tim said.

"I suppose a napalm strike is out of the question?"

"Yeah, napalm's out of the question."

The doorway to the subbasement creaked as they opened it and Steph took a deep breath to steady her heart. The narrow stairwell was the original house, not the modern institution overlay that could've doubled for a high school. The walls were thick bricks and the stairs were wooden, rotting under their steps. Steph cleared a cobweb out of her hair, following in Tim's footprints.

Coming to the bottom of the steps, Tim quickly jimmied the lock and stepped inside. Again, a turn-of-the-century wooden hallway. The shadowy imprint of carpets still remained on the floor, and wallpaper still clung to the now-stripped-bare walls in some places.

Arkham was standing at the end of the hallway, lighter in one hand, knife in the other, running the flame over the blade. "_Hello there. I've warmed things up for you. Welcome home, kiddies._"

Tim stampeded forward, drawing his bo staff. "Stay behind me, Steph!"

Steph silently cursed his typical macho bullcrap when Tim suddenly came to a stop a few feet from Arkham. "What are you waiting for? Hit him!"

"_Timothy, hand me the explosives._"

Tim held out the duffel bag, which Arkham gently took from him.

"_Now,_" Arkham said, flipping the knife out to catch it by the blade and offering it up to Tim. "_Kill your girlfriend._"

Tim took the knife and turned around, fire in his eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

19. Arkham

"Okay, now spring the trap!" Steph cried out, sure Tim was a sufficient distance away from Arkham for the explosion not to affect him. "Hit the radio detonator or something! He's still holding the explosives!"

Tim kept on walking, the tip of the knife scraping against the wall, trailing a pale line through the age-darkened plaster. "There is no radio detonator, you stupid twat. They're timer-activated."

"And… how long ago did you set the timers?"

"I didn't set the timers, Stephanie."

"So…" Steph began, backing up. "Why'd you give him the explosives?"

"Just seemed like a good idea at the time." He thrust the blade out at Steph, who caught it, fingers wrapping around Tim's and trying to pry the knife away from him. Tim pressed into her and they spun for a moment before he slammed Steph backwards into the wall, the knife hovering inches from her back, him forcing it closer and closer to her.

"Too bad for you that human sexual dimorphism favors males. Greater body mass equals more muscle mass."

"Tell that to your crotch." With that, Steph kneed him in the groin. Tim fell back, groaning. Steph quickly undid his utility belt and pulled it away. "Ha! Got your belt!" She whipped him across the face with it and ran for it, but he grabbed her cape, yanking her to a stop like a dog on the end of a leash.

"I wear an athletic cup, you stupid…"

"Yes, yes, twat, I heard you the first time!"

She hit the clasp on her cape and it went into memory fabric mode, contorting as an electrical current passed through it and wrapping around Tim like a straitjacket. Tim howled like a coyote and flapped down on his back. Steph looked away from him to see Arkham holding up an explosive from the bag.

"_I'm going to put this one in your baby's stroller,_" he said in that nowhere voice of his.

"You're going to have a hard time doing that after I shove it up your ass!" Steph threatened, pulling a Robin dart from her belt. Just then she heard the sound of fabric tearing and looked down to see that Tim was slashing out of his private cocoon with the point of his own dagger-like Robin dart.

Steph ran for it.

* * *

"Steph! Come out come out wherever you are…"

Steph tried to ignore Tim's wild shouts and frustrated ventings on whatever was in his line of sight as she picked through his utility belt. She was in the boiler room, a small corridor between two cold furnaces. Directly across from the corridor's opening was the boiler, ancient and corroded but still burning, patched together by Arkham with some sort of weird web-like residue that Steph didn't want to think about.

As for the utility belt, she was still on probationary status and Batman hadn't let her use any of the real cool stuff. Maybe Tim had something she could use… She opened a compartment and a batch of useless regurgitant pills spilled out on the floor. Great. She could vomit him to death. She looked up, listening for Tim.

"Steph, it's alright. I'm feeling much better! Really I am! Come on out, let's talk about this! I'm not going to hurt you! I'm not going to… oh God, you don't believe me, do you? I wouldn't believe me either!"

He hadn't heard her, but his footfalls were getting closer. She moved to the next compartment over and tried to open it, but it caught on something and made a loud whining noise, steadily escalating in volume.

"Oh… shit." She threw the utility belt away and it exploded in a cascading sequence, like a string of Chinese firecrackers. The light from the miniature explosions revealed Tim standing not four feet away from her, eyes bloodshot beneath his mask, smile plastered on his face.

"Pottymouth," he said chidingly in a sing-song tone.

Steph stood up slowly, watching Tim's hands for signs of aggression. "Don't come any closer, Tim. I don't want to hurt you but I will if I have to."

"Hurt me!?" Tim said incredulously, his gestures wild and theatrical. "Hurt me like dumping me and taking my job, that kind of hurt? Or the more physical kind?"

"I didn't dump you."

"Spare me. You dumped me just like you dumped your kid."

"Fight this!" Steph implored him. "This isn't you!"

"You don't know me!" Tim cried. "You never _wanted_ to know me! All you ever wanted to know was _this,_" he finished, pointing to his mask.

"That's not true."

"Oh?" Lunging at Steph, Tim pinned her against the left furnace. "Then how come you broke up with me as soon as you got your own cape and pixie boots?"

Steph headbutted him viciously and shoved him back. Roaring with rage, Tim kicked against the floor at an angle to halt his backwards motion, then grabbed Steph by the hair and swung her around.

"You know why military regulations say that everyone needs to be clean-shaven and have short hair?" He dragged her along with him, battering her head against the furnaces as he went. "It's because back in the old days," he dented the furnace on his right with her skull, "when people fought with knives," he kneed her in the stomach and threw her to the ground, her head rebounding off the concrete floor, "you could get grabbed by the hair and have your head sliced off." He crouched down and picked her head up by the hair. "What I'm getting at is that it's a really fucking stupid idea to have long hair in a combat situation. By the way, you ripped your stitches. I warned you about that."

Steph moaned. The world spun around her and she tried to focus on Tim, but his face swam in and out of clarity, his eyes never gaining any light. He rolled her over, taking a grim appreciation in the blood covering one side of her face, and began unbuttoning her vest stitches.

"Steph, I'm shocked! Are you thinking of taking advantage of me sexually while I'm mentally incapacitated? That's sexual abuse in the second degree, a class A misdemeanor."

"Tim," Steph said, forcing out the words, trying to ignore how _cold_ her blood fell as it soaked into her hair. "There's something you should know."

Tim bent down closer to her, his smile growing brobdingnagian in the dim light. "What? You got some sort of crotch rot from getting knocked up by that asshole boyfriend of yours?"

"No… I added more than a skirt to the costume. Parsimonious gourmund, motherfucker."

Looking around, Tim waited for something to happen. "Do you mean 'gourmand', a cross between a glutton and a gourmet?"

"Yeah, that. Parsimonious gourmand."

A thousand-volt electric charge ran through the suit, electrocuting Tim. He tried to pull away, as the charge was designed to do, but Steph grabbed onto him with her insulated gloves and held onto him, holding him until the voltage had stopped his heart. He dropped down to the floor beside her, dead.

Pulling off her much-abused wig, Steph sat up and cracked her neck, then straddled Tim. "Alright, that zap all the demons out of you? Time to come back to life."

Just as she'd been trained, she began performing CPR on him. Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life. Check for pulse. No pulse. Thirty pumps between the nipples, a hundred per minute. Check for pulse. No pulse.

"Alright, Drake, now you're starting to worry me."

Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life. There was blood coming out of his mouth. Wipe the blood away, check for pulse. No pulse. Thirty pumps between the nipples and there's more blood and his eyes won't open, why won't they open? Still no pulse.

Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life. His chest is rising and falling, but he's not breathing. Doesn't make any sense. What kind of logic says he doesn't have a pulse? Thirty pumps between the nipples and okay, now he's just being stubborn, because there's still no pulse and he's dead.

No.

He can't be dead.

Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life. Thirty pumps between the nipples. Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life. Thirty pumps between the nipples and still no pulse. Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life, thirty pumps…

"C'mon, Tim, you can't be dead. You promised, remember? I trust you, okay? I trust you, so you can't be dead…"

Pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life, thirty pumps, pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of life, thirty pumps, pinch the nose, tilt the head back, kiss of…

And suddenly Steph felt hands reaching up and cupping her face, fingers running through her hair and pulling her down, pulling her against him…

No, not pulling. Pushing. And then suddenly pulling her up and…

"_Did you miss me?_"

Steph could see her reflection in the knife. "Just tell me one thing. One thing. Why us? Why me and him? Why not Nightwing or Huntress or Batman or any of the others?"

Arkham looked at her, eyes bright beneath his slouch hat. "_Because you're my children. I love you. Batman and all the others, they're all mad enough, certainly, but they have a root cause, a raison d'etre, a tragedy in their past to motivate them. But you two, you follow him because you choose to. That kind of insanity has to be paid special attention. Now then, it's far past time for us to conclude our business._"

All Steph could see was the blade coming towards her. She squeezed her eyes shut… and opened them a moment later to see the knife halted an inch from her eye, a green-gloved hand wrapped around the wrist of the arm holding it.

"She's with me," Tim said before he threw his first punch.

Arkham staggered backwards and Tim stalked forward. "Steph, get the boilers!" he yelled without looking with her as Arkham lanced forward, knife gleaming. Tim pulled his stomach in, the knife catching nothing but air, and slammed Arkham again in the face, driving him back. The punches kept coming, one-two, one-two, rapid combos that kept driving Arkham backwards until the heels of their boots were clanking on the metal grating of a catwalk.

* * *

Steph could see an array of levers by the boiler, right next to a bunch of gauges. There gauges all had red at the far ends, where the needles weren't supposed to go.

Didn't take a genius to figure that one out.

* * *

Tim bit back a scream as the knife dug a trench in his shoulder. Arkham followed through with a deadly thrust, intent on impaling Tim through the heart, but the boy drifted to the side and used Arkham's outstretched arm as a high bar, lifting himself up and delivering a knee to the side of Arkham's face.

Arkham went crashing against the tarnished safety railing, knocking loose a cloud of rust flakes. Tim kicked the knife so hard it flew out of his hands, flying past a length of hanging chain and sticking into the opposite wall like a dart.

The opposite wall was rock. The quake had ripped apart this part of the foundation, opening up everything below the catwalk into what might well be a bottomless pit.

* * *

And far behind them, the pressure kept rising as Steph figured out by trial and error which levers would send the boilers towards catastrophe.

* * *

Jumping up to deliver a side kick to Arkham's chest, Tim was shocked when the madman moved like quicksilver, grabbing Tim's foot by the ankle and slamming him down against the catwalk like a sack of potatoes. The entire catwalk groaned and shifted. Arkham kicked Tim, a kick that sent him sliding ten feet across the catwalk.

Tim was still getting up as Arkham steamrolled towards him, hands bunched together to deliver the final blow, when the rivets on a pipe next to them blew. They popped not all at once, but one by one, top to bottom, the miniature cannon blasts separating Tim and Arkham for the moment.

"_You can't win_."

"I know," Tim said as a blown rivet ripped through the safety railing like a bullet. "But I can make damn sure you can't either."

With that, he ran through the field of rivets and tackled Arkham off the catwalk.

* * *

Steph backed away from the boiler as all the needles slammed into the red, the room transforming into a hell of hissing steam.

* * *

Tim had grabbed onto one chain, hanging from the ceiling. Arkham had grabbed onto another. They swung towards each other like knights jousting. Arkham won. Tim was knocked from his perch by the impact, barely managing to grab onto one of the roiling chains as he fell. As it happened, it was Arkham's chain. The maniac let go and dropped down, landing on Tim with lethal effect. Tim was knocked further down and snagged the end of the chain. Above him, Arkham laughed and prepared to repeat the attack.

"_Looks like you're at the end of your rope._"

He only caught Steph falling past him out the corner of his eye. But he managed to see with crystal clarity the Batarang she threw as it cut through the chain, sending him into freefall.

Steph grabbed onto Tim and threw out another grappling line. It caught just as the falling Arkham reached for them, hands clutching at air as they swung away.

"Brace yourself!" Steph said. "We're gonna need to do a number six!"

Steph and Tim held out their legs as the abyss' wall rushed up to meet them. Both sets of legs absorbed the impact. Above them, the first of many explosions tore through the asylum and the deteriorated catwalk creaked free, falling past them like a bomb.

"Cave!" Tim yelled. They rappelled towards it, throwing themselves inside just as the entire thing collapsed. An entire cross-section of the abandoned asylum cascaded past them, plugging the abyss and burying Arkham alive. Tim held onto Steph, covering her head until the rumbling stopped.

* * *

_They didn't make it out. How could they have? No one knew where they were, so there couldn't be a rescue. The cave didn't lead anywhere. They stayed in that cave until they starved to death and if you looked in there now, you would see two tiny teenage skeletons, huddled together, waiting for Batman to rescue them._

_That's the only way it could've ended._

_Anything else would be crazy._

* * *

"Lucky for us this leads into an old subway tunnel," Steph said as she crawled out of the passageway. Her entire uniform was dirty and tarnished from the seemingly miles-long trek, but the air here was relatively fresher.

She helped Tim get out and he looked around. And started laughing.

"We didn't make it out. I didn't make it out…"

Steph stepped closer to him. "What are you talking about? What's so funny?"

"It's all so funny!" he yelled, laughing hysterically. "Can't you see that! It's all so funny… funny…"

His laughter turned into loud sobs as he sunk to his knees, repeating "funny… funny…" like a broken record until he was pounding the floor with his fists, knuckles bloodying and breaking, and everything was _red and black and broken and nothing would ever be okay again nothing nothing._

Steph lifted his head up slowly. She peeled off his domino mask. His eyes were bloodshot and raw beneath the blank white eyelenses. "It's okay. I'll catch you."

Gradually, Tim's hands stopped shaking. He stroked her face with his hand and it came away with blood on it. "I can't be with you. I can't be with anyone. I'm too dangerous…"

"Silly boy," Steph said as she pressed a kiss to his grimy forehead, leaving a little lip-shaped mark of not-so-dirty skin. "I'm dangerous too."

* * *

The walk back to Cass' cave was long and arduous and when they finally got there their limbs were tired and aching and Tim just collapsed on the red sofa, congruous amongst the flowstones and helictites.

Steph fell on top of him. They smiled at each other and she produced a moist towelette from somewhere and began wiping off his face and kissing the parts she cleaned and washing off his neck and kissing the parts she cleaned and pulling his uniform off and kissing the parts she cleaned…

"What are you doing?" Tim asked.

"I'm fucking you. In the non-metaphorical way." She handed him some wipes and he began cleaning off her face, discarding them onto the cave floor as litter when they became as black as charcoal.

His palm scraped against dried blood as he stroked her face, but underneath her uniform her skin was clean and goddamn if it didn't even smell sweet… "I don't… I had a condom, but I lost it in the whole asylum-blowing up, going crazy thing."

"S'alright. I have a diaphragm."

"I don't even know what that is. I don't want to know what that is. Is that like a… not get pregnant thing?"

"Yeah, Tim. It's a not get pregnant thing."

"Where do you keep it?"

"In my utility belt, next to the Batarangs." Steph paused at Tim's reaction. "What's so funny?"

20. Epilogue

Sometime in between lovemaking they had moved to the guest bedroom "upstairs," as they called it like it wasn't aboveground and the cave wasn't below ground. Steph woke to see that the only light was coming from the bathroom. The door was open and she got up, wrapping the bedsheet around her because the only thing to put on was the Robin costume and that all bloody and gunky and shit.

Inside, Tim was sitting on the toilet, holding a razor to his wrist.

"You want to talk about it?" Steph asked matter-of-factly.

"No."

"Well… the sex wasn't that bad, was it?"

Tim shook his head slowly. "It's not that."

"Tim? Can you put the razor away? It's making me nervous." Steph's voice was very small as she knew Tim wouldn't go for it.

"Why?"

"Why put the razor away? For one thing, if you're planning on using it to commit suicide…"

"I am," Tim said, offering up an awkward, comforting smile.

"Well, no Robin should die by slashing their wrists with the razor I use for shaving my legs."

"Doesn't matter. You see, this isn't real. None of this is real. I'm still in the asylum. I'm still inside my head, where Arkham put me. I never left. This is all one big ruse."

Steph took a step closer, letting the sheet fall away, bare feet padding on the rug over the cold tile floor. "That's not true. You're out here, with me."

Tim shook his head. "I'm out there, doing God knows what. I could be hurting people. I could be hurting you. I have to make sure that I can't hurt anyone else. I have to cut down, not across. Sever all the arteries, slash so deep I get the tendons. Otherwise it may not take"

Steph sat down on the edge of the bathtub and offered up her hand. "Alright. Do me first."

"What?"

"If this isn't real, then kill me first. Run a test case first. See if this is a good way to die." Steph shook her hand. "C'mon. Do it."

"I can't do that. I can't take the chance that you're real…"

"What does it matter if I'm real!?" Steph shouted, standing up. "It's not like I've got that much to live for if you're dead. Tim, I want to go find my baby. I want you to teach me how to be Robin. I want a lot of things but most of all I want a life with you. None of that can happen if you don't put down the razor."

Tim stared at her. "It's not you saying this. It's the hallucination. It's trying to trick me…"

Steph slapped him. They stood there, stockstill, for a few moments as Tim's cheek burned red. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare tell me that I'm just a figment of your imagination. That all I've worked for, all I've dreamed about, all my hopes and fears and my… my love for you is all something you just dreamed up. Don't you dare."

Tim bent down and slowly, gently, set the razor down on the floor. Steph kicked it behind the toilet and took him by the hands, pulling him to his feet.

"Come back to bed. Things'll seem better in the morning."

And they did.


End file.
